


Legacies: To Venusia and Beyond

by Kihonne



Series: Legacies [2]
Category: Lab Rats (TV 2012), Lab Rats: Elite Force (TV), Mighty Med
Genre: Alien Planet, Bionic Superhumans, F/M, Kid Fic, Next Generation, Set in 2039, Superheroes, Will add tags as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 57,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22053223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kihonne/pseuds/Kihonne
Summary: Chase, Bree, Jaden, Kaz, Dani, Oliver, and Skylar have gone missing on their mission to stop the Venusian-Calderan war. Determined to rescue them, their children steal a ship and head to Venusia themselves. But when their plan goes off the rails almost immediately, the kids are forced to improvise. But they'll soon learn that that's not an easy task on a planet at war, filled with secrets and dangers beyond anything they could have imagined.
Relationships: Naomi Davenport/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Legacies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1325657
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	1. Runaways

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own mighty med, lab rats, or the elite force, or anything from the original TV shows. I only own this story, Emily, Sera, Charlotte, Kameron, Kira, Noah, Ben, and any other OCs present, along with anything else you don't recognize.

**Kira's POV**

"We're free!" I dropped to my knees, hands in the air and a grin on my face as students filed out of the classroom behind me. Kameron walked around me, giving me an amused look.

"A little dramatic, don't you think?" He asked, shaking my head.

"No." I insisted, smiling at him. He rolled his eyes and offered me his hand. I accepted it and climbed to my feet. "Not everyone likes school, Kam. Some of us can't wait for Spring Break."

"You're just happy that Millennium Academy has a 3-week Spring Break instead of Anderson High's 1-week break." He told me. I beamed at him.

"A 3-week Spring Break, Kameron!" I exclaimed, skipping past him to my locker. "I love private schools."

"I see someone's happy." Charlotte chuckled, walking over to us. Kameron sent her a grin.

"You know how she is." He commented before opening his own locker to grab my backpack. I elbowed him in the ribs before closing my locker and turning around to smile at Charlotte.

"Look, I'm excited for a break from school, alright? I think we earned it, since we didn't have that much of a Christmas break." I reasoned. Charlotte shrugged. "What? I'm right."

"I know. It's just, we might not have that much of a vacation..." She trailed off meaningfully. Kameron and I exchanged looks.

"Emily found something out?" Kameron asked. Charlotte pressed her lips together in a thin line and didn't answer, instead turning around to walk towards the doors. Kameron and I followed her, keeping pacing with the older girl until we exited the school. A nice, dark gray SUV was waiting for us outside, with Noah, Emily, and Sera leaning against it, waiting for us.

"Nice car." Kameron whistled in appreciation at the sight. Noah chuckled. "I didn't realize Calla was paying you enough to buy yourself a new car."

"She doesn't; the car is one of Chase's. Calla let me borrow it to run some errands." He explained. Kameron raised an eyebrow.

"Errands for her or errands for us?" He questioned. Noah smirked.

"Both, though she only needs to know about the ones for her." He replied. We all climbed into the car, Kameron and Charlotte taking the back seats, leaving Sera and I in the middle while Emily and Noah took the front.

"Oh, I told Mrs. Chavez that you went home sick. She probably didn't call home, seeing as Calla probably would have called you by now, but I figured I should tell you just in case."

"Thanks for covering for me, guys." She smiled at us. Kameron leaned forward in his seat.

"Was it worth it?" He asked, looking between her and Emily. The two girls exchanged looks. "Well?"

"Let's get settled somewhere, then we'll talk." Noah suggested. Emily nodded.

"Calla's probably home, so we can't do it there." I reminded them. Charlotte smirked.

"It's okay. I've got a place in mind." She assured us.

**Ben's POV**

I tapped my car's steering wheel to the rhythm of the rap song on the radio as I waited for Naomi. She'd asked me to pick her up here, since she had to hand in her latest freelance assignment to the news editor. She'd pulled out of school for the semester to make things easier in preparation for the Venusian mission, and had taken to doing some freelance work for the Centium City Daily Report for some extra cash.

I smiled when she finally exited the building. She started walking down the stairs leading up to the news building, bag in one hand and a smile on her face.

"Hey." She greeted as she climbed into the passenger seat, leaning over to kiss me before buckling up. I turned, resting my arm on the back of her seat. "How was visiting your mom?"

"It was good. She hates the mission." I admitted. She smiled apologetically. "I mean, she gets it, but going off planet isn't her idea of 'being safe', you know?"

"Believe me, I get it. My mom kinda freaked out when I went down last week." She agreed. "Dad kept it together better, but I can tell he's not too thrilled about two more of his kids going to Venusia."

"Well, ideally, all four of you come back safe." I offered her a reassuring smile. I knew how much this mission meant to her. It was her brother and sister at stake here. Failing wasn't an option for her.

"Has Calla told the kids yet?" She asked, clearing her throat. I shook my head.

"Not yet. She wants to have that conversation before dinner." I replied. She nodded.

"Any idea who's cooking?" She questioned, sounding apprehensive. I chuckled. "Seriously, I hope it's Leo. or Katherine. Or Kameron."

"Well, it doesn't matter, because I'm taking you out." I told her. She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Happy one-month anniversary." She looked at me, mouth opening into a wide, surprised smile. "Don't tell me you thought I'd forget."

"No, I just...I didn't think we were going to celebrate, given everything going on." She admitted, blushing a little. I smiled at her. "Please tell me you didn't get me a gift. I didn't get you anything."

"No, no. Just dinner, I promise." I assured her. She let out a relieved breath. "I just figured, this might be our last chance for some downtime for a while, why not make the most of it?"

She smiled at me. "Okay, that's sweet." She told me before leaning over to kiss me, this kiss lasting longer than the last. "Happy one-month anniversary."

**Kira's POV**

"I love your apartment." Seraphina said, looking around the room as she sat down on the couch, the rest of us all settling in the Dooley's upstairs living room. It was a pretty nice loft, I had to admit, almost nicer than the Davenport's; between the two living rooms, the massive kitchen, and the hot tub on the balcony, I almost wished that we'd moved in here instead of the Davenport's penthouse.

"Thanks. Papa's kinda got a thing for interior design." Charlotte shrugged, walking back into the room with a bowl of chips in her hands. She placed in on the coffee table before sitting down between Emily and Kameron on the left side of the 10-seater wrap around couch. "He's working late, and Mama's helping Logan and Kate on a sea rescue mission, so we've got the place to ourselves for at least a couple of hours."

"Okay, so what have we got?" Kameron asked, leaning forward to grab a handful of chips.

"So, here's what we know," Sera leaned forward in her seat next to Emily. "We need to get to Venusia, but both Venusia and Caldera are currently protected by barriers blocking geoleap access to the planets. But the barriers don't block ship access, so that's how we're going to get in."

"That seems like an oversight they should have thought about." Kameron commented. Sera shook her head.

"They need to allow ships in for import and trading with other allied planets. The access points are monitored, but we have a few ideas about how to sneak in." She explained. "I have a friend who can get us back onto Caldera."

"Caldera's pretty far from Venusia." I pointed out. "Why not go straight to Venusia?"

"Because if we take the ship Calla had built, it'll take us months to reach Venusia. Our parents may not have months." Noah explained. Emily nodded.

"There's a prototype high-speed cpu design on Caldera that their scientists were testing prior to the war. Sera says they're not done yet, since their research had to be put on hold thanks to the conflict with the Venusians, but I think I might be able to use some Davenport Industries tech to finish it and apply it to our light-speed engine. In layman's terms, I'm gonna use a Calderan computer chip to boost our engine's performance to make us go a LOT faster than we would otherwise."

"You said you _think_ you can do that." I commented skeptically. If she was wrong, it would all be in vain.

"I'm sure. Charlotte and I can do it." Emily nodded certainly. She gave me a reassuring smile. "I wouldn't take a risk like this without being sure."

"Okay." I agreed. Emily was prideful and sometimes a little overconfident in her skill set, but her dad's life was on the line too. She was sure.

"How long do we think it'll take us to get from Caldera to Venusia with the new engine?" Kameron questioned.

"A few days." Emily smiled. I looked at her in surprise. The original trip was supposed to be four months, and now it was just a few days? "There's a reason why Mom was trying to recruit non-human scientists prior to the war; they're good."

"Wait, let's back up a moment. You said the ship Calla built." Charlotte realized. She looked at Emily, Noah, and Sera. "It's done?"

"It is." Noah confirmed. "Calla had me drop supplies for the trip off this morning; I brought Emily and Sera along so they could look at the specs and see if the engines would be compatible."

I felt butterflies form in my stomach. This was actually happening. If the ship was done, we'd be leaving soon. We were actually going to go into space. "When do we leave?"

"Well, I need time to get enough supplies for us, but it'll have to be soon. We don't know when Ben and Naomi's team is leaving." Noah explained. Emily nodded.

"We should be ready to leave by Monday." She told us. The rest of us all exchanged looks, understanding what this meant. By this time next week, we could legitimately be on Venusian soil.

**Ben's POV**

"Oh, good." Calla looked up from the smoke she'd been fanning away from the stove, her expression turning from a frustrated scowl to a gentle smile when the kids all walked through the door. "You're home."

"Uh oh. She's cooking." Kira whispered dramatically to Kameron. Calla gave her a look, and the pyrokinetic wilted under her gaze. "I mean, yay, more of Calla's incredible cuisine."

"I called Leo and hes bringing take out." The genius CEO assured us. "Sit, sit. I wanted to talk to you guys."

"Didn't school let out a couple of hours ago?" Naomi questioned from where she was sitting at the kitchen counter.

"We stopped for ice cream." Noah explained. Calla nodded.

"You got those errands done, though, right?" She questioned. He nodded.

"I finished it all this afternoon." He assured her. Calla nodded, then raised her chin as Emily tried to sneak up the stairs.

"I said I wanted to talk to all of you." She said loudly. Emily sighed and stopped on the stairs.

"Helix!" She called before turning around and walking down the stairs. The cavapoo came running down after his master, butting into her legs as she reached the bottom.

"What's up?" She asked, crossing her arms. I sighed. Things had been cold between the two of them ever since the attack at the Explority building. Between the secrets and what had happened with Darius, Emily was still pretty angry, and though Calla had apologized and tried to make amends at first, it seemed that her new strategy was just to wait Emily out until she had relaxed on her own. I wasn't sure how well that was going to work, but the rest of us had chosen to stay out of it.

"Sit, guys. Team meeting." I told them. Emily visibly relaxed - Calla was the only one she was mad at - and sat down in the blue chair near the holo-streamer. The others followed suit, relaxing on the couch.

"What's going on?" Charlotte questioned, crossing her ankles and smiling at Calla cheerfully.

"We said we'd keep you guys updated on the Venusian mission." I explained. Immediately, they all turned serious.

"The ship is finished being built and tested and is ready for space flight." Calla explained. "It's ready to take the team to Venusia."

"Who's on the team, anyway?" Seraphina questioned. Calla offered her a smile.

"Well, obviously Ben and Naomi here. Adam and Taylor from the Bionic Headquarters have volunteered, as have Spotlight and Nyx from the NLH, along with Dr. Jazz Krane from Mighty Med 2.0." She explained. Kira raised her hand. "Nyssa Bennett will be staying with her aunt in Canada for the duration of the mission, not with us."

"Thank you. I don't think I could survive staying with her for a week, let alone how long this mission is going to take." Kira sighed in relief. Kameron just shook his head at his sister. "What? She's annoying."

"Whatever you say, Kira." He rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, we're going to be leaving tomorrow morning, so we just wanted to-" I started.

"What?" "Tomorrow?" To my surprise, I was cut off by a number of protests and explanations of surprise.

"Um, yes?" Naomi looked at me, frowning. "We don't want to waste any time on this. If the ship's ready, we should leave right away."

"Yes, obviously." Charlotte nodded, smiling. "It just doesn't feel real yet, I guess."

"I know. Neither do we." Naomi assured them. I smiled reassuringly at them.

"Don't worry, guys. We'll be back before you know it, with your parents." I promised them. They all looked at me, their expressions hard to read. "I promise you guys that this mission is going to be a success. You'll see them, and us, again."

"We better." Emily commented half-heartedly. I gave her a gentle smile.

"Anyway, we wanted to go over a couple of things with you guys." I continued. Naomi nodded.

"Firstly, since Ben and I are both going on the mission, you'll need a new team leader." She explained. She turned to the oldest of the remaining heroes. "Noah, you're going to be in charge of the team in my absence."

"Me?" Noah stared at her. She nodded. "I, uh...thank you?"

"Don't worry; you'll do fine." She told him. He nodded, a thoughtful look on his face.

"As for the rest of you, I'm giving you all one last order." She continued, turning to the rest of the kids. "I don't want you to focus on what our team is doing, I want you to focus on what's most important."

"School." I added. "Enjoying the rest of your school year, and your summer, especially you two, Emily and Charlotte."

"Hopefully we'll be back in time for your autumn break." Naomi added. The kids all exchanged looks.

"I guess this is goodbye then?" Kameron asked, uncertain. I chuckled.

"We'll say goodbye before we leave tomorrow." I assured them. "Liam and Rani are supposed to the last ones to arrive, and they're not getting here till nearly 10 tomorrow."

"Okay. I guess we'll say goodbye tomorrow then." Emily said. Noah stood up.

"Um, is that all? I forgot that I had some stuff to do tonight." He told us.

"Leo's going to be here with the take out soon." Calla told him. Noah smiled.

"That's alright; I'll just eat while we're out. It's to do with my program change application." He explained. Calla nodded.

"Alright. We'll save you a plate." She assured him. He smiled.

"Thanks." He told her before heading out the door. I looked at Naomi, who nodded.

"We should get going too. We have reservations." I told Calla. She nodded.

"I'll see you two tomorrow then." She replied.

**Xxx**

"This place is nice." Naomi commented, looking around the restaurant after the waitress left to get our drinks. "Where'd you hear about this place?"

"Aroma. She and Tempest came here just after it opened." I explained. Naomi nodded.

"Aroma...isn't she the one with the bubble gum colored hair?" Naomi questioned, trying to remember. I nodded. "Oh yeah. Geminus introduced us. She's an NLH rep for the Coalition, right?"

"Yeah. She's Liv's go-between with Miles. She's nice. Rani hates her though."

"Rani hates everyone." Naomi pointed out. I chuckled.

"Nah, she just acts that way. You'll see what I mean when we're working together." I explained. She nodded thoughtfully.

"It's going to be weird, living in such close quarters with everybody." She commented. I nodded in agreement.

"Which is why I really wanted to do this tonight. We won't really have another chance for a while." I mentioned. She frowned. "It'll be something like eight, nine months before we're back on Earth."

"We can still try and make some time for ourselves on the ship." Naomi insisted. "Sure there's no restaurants, but space sludge in the storage unit is fine with me if it is with you."

I smiled at the idea of the two of us eating whatever astronaut food Calla's guys had packed for us while sitting on boxes in the storage section of the ship while avoiding everyone else. The idea wasn't unappealing, but there was something else bothering me. "That wasn't the part that was bugging me."

"Then what? We're going to be up there for eight months, Ben." She pointed out. I nodded in agreement.

"Yes, we are." I agreed. "Eight months in space, with Adam Davenport." I added. Naomi frowned.

"So?" She questioned. I looked at her.

"Does he know that we're dating?" I asked. She hesitated.

"Not yet. We haven't really talked since the new year." She admitted. "Are you upset that I haven't told him?"

"No, no. I'm not upset." I assured her quickly. She nodded.

"Then I don't see what the big deal is." She told me. I chuckled. "What?"

"You have an overprotective family." I pointed out.

"No I don't." She retorted. I nodded. "No, I don't."

"You do, Naomi." I told her. She rolled her eyes. "Admit it."

"Okay, maybe they're a little overprotective." She admitted reluctantly. I chuckled.

"Leo threatened to kick my ass." I told her. Her eyes widened.

"Did he actually?" She laughed in surprise.

"Well...he tried." I admitted. She smiled, confused. "He started to, got to about 'if you ever hurt her', and then I stood up and he remembered that I can kick his ass a LOT easier than he can kick mine."

"Oh my God." She laughed into her hand. "What did he do next?"

"He just kinda stopped and left the room. It was actually pretty funny." I admitted, laughing as well. She smiled.

"Okay, yeah. I will talk to Adam, make sure he's on his best behavior." She promised. I chuckled.

"Thank you." I smiled as the waitress returned, carrying a beer and a glass of wine. She placed them on the table and left to give us more time. I raised my drink.

"Here's to a successful mission, and to you controlling your crazy family." I teased. She laughed good naturedly at the tease.

"Here's to me trying. Davenports don't exactly do as they're told." She replied, clinking her glass against the glass bottle.

**Kira's POV**

I had just finishing zipping up my duffel bag when there was a soft knock on my door. I froze instantly, praying it wasn't Naomi. She had told me she'd planned on spending the night at Ben's, so I shouldn't worry when she didn't come back tonight, but that she would come back in the morning before leaving for the mission.

"It's just me." Seraphina whispered, and I relaxed. I quickly opened the door, ushering her inside. "I wasn't sure if you were awake or not."

"I didn't want the lights to wake Calla." I explained, gesturing to the only light source in the room, the tiny fairy lights I'd convinced Naomi to let me put up when I'd moved in.

"Good idea. Noah's gone to finish packing the ship. He took Charlotte with him." She explained.

"Was he able to get everything in time?" I asked, uncertainly. With the mission planned for tomorrow, we had to move our agenda up, but it hadn't left us much time to get everything we'd wanted to do. I'd been hoping to be able to geoleap back to my own house and grab a few things that would be helpful for the mission, but there'd been no time at all.

"I hope so." Sera's answer wasn't all that reassuring, but it was the best I was going to get. "You ready to go?"

"I guess so." I took one last look at my room, then nodded to myself and hoisted my bag over my shoulder. "Let's go."

I carefully and quietly followed her out of my room and into the hall. The door to her and Emily's room was still open, and in the darkness, I could see Emily sitting on her bed, intently petting Helix's fur. Her duffel bag was sitting on the ground at her feet. She was fully dressed in black pants, a dark t-shirt, and a slightly too big dark blue sweater, clearly ready to go but not quite wanting to leave her dog's side just yet.

"Em." Sera murmured. The technopath looked up, startled, then nodded.

"I've got to go, boy." She murmured to her dog. Helix whined in response, jumping to his feet as if to follow us. "No, Helix. I'm sorry, but I can't take you with me. We don't know what those evil Venusians do to doggies."

He whimpered but lied back down on the bed dejectedly. Emily's face crumpled and she dropped to her knees in front of him. "Hey, it's okay. Mom's going to take good care of you." She promised. "And when I get back, I promise I won't leave again for a long, long time, okay? And I'll give you a hundred cuddles and treats, okay? I promise."

Helix looked up at the sound of 'treats' and stared at her for a long moment before leaning close to sniff her. After a moment, he licked her on the face, making Emily's face scrunch up.

"Okay, be good. I love you." She told him, kissing him on the head before grabbing her bag and walking out after us.

As we walked towards the stairs, we passed by Calla's room. The door was slightly ajar, and we could see the pregnant woman asleep. Emily hesitated as she passed the door, looking into her mom's room with a slightly guilty look on her face. She and Calla hadn't been on the greatest terms since Darius had left, but I could tell that lying to her mom and sneaking out wasn't completely agreeing with her either.

I touched her arm gently, and she seemed to shake herself out of it. She tore her gaze away from Calla's room and led the way downstairs, where Kameron was already waiting. He was standing at the counter, writing something on a piece of paper.

"What are you doing?" I whispered to him.

"Writing Calla a note." He explained, finishing what he was doing. He folded the piece of paper and placed it on top of Calla's holo-tablet. "So she doesn't freak out in the morning."

"She's still definitely going to freak out." Seraphina pointed out. Emily nodded.

"Oh yeah, even if we survive this mission, she's definitely going to kill us when we return." She agreed.

"Well, it's still polite." He insisted. Emily and Seraphina both looked at me pointedly.

"Well, it is." I reasoned. Emily rolled her eyes.

"Let's just go." She insisted. She gave the room a once over, then took a deep breath and turned on her heel, walking out the door without another word.

**Ben's POV**

"Wow." Naomi whistled as I pulled up to the airfield that Calla had bought specifically for this mission. Naomi stared up at the grey and blue spaceship even as she climbed out of the car, eyes wide with wonder. "It's huge."

"Well, it has to carry fourteen people across space for months on end." I reminded her, looking up at the ship myself. It was large - 2 floors, about 40 feet long and 30 feet wide - but having gone inside myself, I knew its appearance was a little deceptive. The bottom halves of each of the two long, large cylinders on either side of the massive circular center were mostly made up of the light speed engines, and the largest part of the ship was the bridge. "It feels a lot smaller on the inside."

"It does?" She questioned, looking back at me. I nodded. "Still, it looks huge."

"Trust me, you won't be saying that after a month stuck in there." I told her. She gave me a look.

"You're awfully grumpy." She commented.

"Maybe that's because your sister-in-law woke us up at 3 in the morning for an 'emergency meeting' at the ship." I grumbled. Naomi rolled her eyes and closed the car door before heading for the open ramp that led into the cargo bay of the ship.

"It's probably important." She reasoned as I followed her inside. When I saw that Calla was not in the cargo bay, I stopped next to the ladder that led up to the 2nd floor of the ship.

"I swear, if she just wants to go over the ships controls again because she can't sleep, I'm actually going to kill her this time." I threatened. Naomi rolled her eyes.

"That happened one time, Benji." She sighed. A sudden beeping alerted us to the fact that the cargo bay ramp was slowly raising to seal us in. "Where is Calla, anyway?"

"The bridge is on the second floor." I sighed, grabbing a rung of the ladder. I started to climb up it, but before I could even place a foot on the third rung, the ship suddenly jerked violently, the hum of the engines growing to an audible level as the ship left the ground.

"Are we - are we moving?" Naomi demanded, managing to keep her balance as the ship took off. "Are we flying?"

"C'mon." I quickly ascended the ladder, Naomi following closely behind. Once on the second floor, I led her around the corner and into the bridge, where we were met with the most unexpected sight.

Emily and Seraphina were at the front of the bridge, the former in the pilot's seat while the latter was in the navigator's seat to Emily's right. In the row of 3 seats behind them were Charlotte, Kira, and Noah; Charlotte was in the middle of them, leaning to the right as far as her seat belt would let her in order to explain to Noah how the complicated straps worked, while Kira, also buckled in, was craning her neck to try and look at what Emily was doing at the controls. Her brother was behind her, looking a little grey in the face.

"What the hell is going on?" I demanded loudly. Almost all of them looked back at me, startled by my shout, with guilty looks on their faces. The only one who didn't was Emily, who kept her gaze locked on the controls.

"Hey Ben, hey Naomi. I'd buckle up if I were you." She called back to us, fiddling with the controls. "This is my first time flying a spaceship, and I suspect the roughness of this flight will most likely reflect that."

Kameron groaned at her words, and Kira handed him a small contained, a sympathetic look on her face.

"Uh, you want to explain what's going on here?" Naomi sounded more confused than annoyed, unlike myself who had already realized the kids' reckless, dangerous, and frankly stupid plan.

"We're going to save our parents." Kira told us cheerfully.

"There was a plan in place!" I exclaimed. They ignored me.

"By ourselves?" Naomi questioned. Charlotte nodded.

"We have a plan that'll work faster and better than Calla's. But she wouldn't have let us go, so we took matters into our own hands." She explained. Naomi looked at her, then at Noah.

"I put you in charge and this is what you do?" She questioned incredulously. He shrugged.

"Yeah...not your best decision, Naomi." He told her. She laughed humorlessly at that, shaking her head in amazement at them. Emily sighed.

"Look, your options are simple. Either you can go along with our plan, or you can use the escape pod and bail out before we leave the atmosphere. But either way, we're doing this." She told us, tone serious. I stared at her, then turned to Naomi in disbelief.

"Did we just get kidnapped by a bunch of high school students?" I questioned.

"I'm not in high school." Noah chimed in. I rolled my eyes.

"Fine, a bunch of high school students and a college drop out." I corrected myself. Noah scowled, then sighed.

"Fair." He admitted. "Mean, but fair."

"Yeah, looks like it." Naomi replied, answering my question. Seraphina turned around in her seat to face us fully.

"So. Are you with us, or are you against us?" She questioned. Naomi looked around the room, then dropped into the nearest seat, right behind Noah, and began to buckle up wordlessly. Sera smiled when she saw that. The rest of the kids all watched me expectantly.

After a long moment, I sighed and moved past Naomi to sit between her and Kameron, just behind Charlotte. "Calla is definitely going to kill us when we get back." I announced, buckling myself into the seat. Kira beamed in response before turning around in her seat to face the front.

"Oh, it's okay. We left a note."


	2. Caldera

**Noah's POV**

When our parents originally left Earth, their mission would have taken approximately 4 months, with the first week just getting them as far as Caldera. Earth's technology had improved vastly over the last twenty years of so (my grandfather often bragged that the rise of bionic superhumans had led to an era of scientific advancement like no other in human history), but space travel hadn't been one of our highest points of advancement. It just wasn't our strong suit. Even with the hundreds of hours of work and tens of thousands of dollars that Calla had put into redesigning the Davenship for the second trip, it only managed to shave a couple of days off our travel time. Ideally, the engine upgrade or whatever Emily was excited about would be able to get us to Venusia much faster.

That being said, what Calla lacked in speed of travel, she at least made up for in comfort. Clearly anticipating the length of the trip, Calla had personally designed the ship to be as comfortable as possible for the occupants, for which we were grateful.

The ship was kinda in a H shape, but the center of it was a huge ovular section, the bottom floor of which being the cargo bay, which led into a kitchen and dining area on the left side, and a small office on the right side (probably for communications or something), and the two, massive, plasma engines at the back ends of either, both keeping the ship moving and making the bottom half of the ship comfortably warm at all times. The top half of the ship was more clearly for the living areas, with the ship's bridge being the only non-luxury part of the floor. The ladder from the cargo bay to the second floor opened up into a small lounge area just behind the bridge. On either side of the bridge and lounge area was a hallway of bedrooms, which were quickly fought over and divided (the four bedrooms on the left side of the ship were smaller, but had better beds, while the three on the right were larger with bunks, intended to be shared). Obviously, we would have to change the sleeping arrangements once we got our parents, but for now, I was quite comfortable having claimed one of the only single person bedrooms on the ship.

Along with the decent accommodations, Calla had filled the ship with a number of things to keep the occupants from getting bored over the long trip, including food synthesizers that could create almost any food imaginable, a massive bookshelf in the office filled with readings of any genre, a second bookshelf filled with bored games, and other such amenities. Overall, it looked like Calla had thought of everything she could to make this trip as smooth and as comfortable as possible. There was only one problem.

There was only one bathroom.

"C'mon Kameron, I really have to go." Kira whimpered, practically dancing in front of the bathroom door. The entrance to the single, small bathroom was in the lounge area, where Ben, Charlotte, Sera, and I were sitting in front of the massive viewing window, playing one of the board games we found in the office. "Kam?"

She only got a groan in reply, and she sighed before leaning against the wall and sliding down until she was sitting with her knees pressed against her chest. "Sixty seconds, that's all I need." She muttered.

"Yahtzee!" Charlotte suddenly shouted, beaming excitedly as she rolled five of the same number.

"Hey, quiet down." Sera hushed her immediately. "Emily's asleep, remember? She was up flying all night."

"Right, sorry." Charlotte apologized, glancing down the hall as if she expected her best friend to come stalking down the hall any second. I gave Sera a look.

"That's what you're upset about?" I questioned incredulously. "That's her third Yahtzee."

"Sucker." Charlotte stuck her tongue out at me as Ben added it to her score, shaking his head all the while.

"You're cheating." I accused. She cocked her head to the side.

"How?" She questioned. I hesitated. "I'm not cheating, Noah. How on earth would I cheat?"

"I haven't figured that out yet." I replied grumpily. She smirked.

"Well, let me know when you do." She told me. "Until then, I'm just gonna keep winning, if that's alright with you."

Just then, Kameron finally came out of the bathroom, looking positively green in the face, and clutching a garbage can. Kira shot him a sympathetic look before bolting into the bathroom, closing the door behind her immediately.

"How're you feeling, buddy?" Ben asked sympathetically. Kameron just groaned and sat down on the floor where his sister had been sitting.

"I hate ships." He groaned after a moment, face hovering over the garbage can. "Water or space, they both suck."

"We should have thought to bring your motion sickness bracelets." Kira, true to her word, emerged from the bathroom less than a minute later, looking altogether relieved at having gotten in there. She looked at her brother apologetically. "I should have put it on the list. Don't worry, we'll be on the ground soon."

"How soon?" He questioned. Almost immediately, Naomi's voice came over the intercom.

 _"Hey guys. I need everyone up to the bridge. We're about to land."_ She announced.

"On our way, Naomi." Ben replied, getting up. Charlotte pushed herself to her feet, then walked over to Kameron and offered him her hand.

"C'mon. We'll be on the ground really, really soon." He sighed deeply but took her hand and allowed her to pull him to his feet. By time we made it to the bridge, Emily had joined Naomi at the controls, dressed and ready to go.

"Good morning." Kira greeted. Emily shrugged.

"Actually, it's like 22:00 earth time." She corrected. Naomi glanced back at us before turning her attention to windshield. Outside, we could see the crimson, rocky planet approaching fast, its red skies already surrounding us.

"Welcome to Caldera." Seraphina murmured, leaning on the back of a chair.

**Xxx**

We all left the ship quickly, only delaying long enough to get dressed in something better for Caldera (we'd brought our uniforms, but had decided that for the time being, it was best to try and dress a little more subtle) and to receive temperature-controlling patches to protect us from the heat from the hot Calderan sun. However, by time we stepped out of the ship, we realized that we weren't alone.

"Well, well, well. Look who's back." A young man about my age was waiting for us, stepping out from behind an outcropping rock just in front of the landing area that Sera had led us to. One look at him told us he was not a Calderan native; his skin was too white, his eyes a bright green, and his beach blonde hair too ironic for a planet without beaches.

"Felix." Sera beamed when she saw him, immediately pulling him into a hug. I raised my eyebrow at that, wondering who this guy was. Looking back at the others, Naomi, Charlotte, and Emily looked equally confused, so at least I wasn't alone in that.

"What are you doing here?" Kira smiled at the older boy, seeming to know him as well.

"The Calderans were looking for volunteers at the hospital, and Horace thought it would be a good place to do my residency." He explained. He looked past us, a concerned look on his face. "Is Kameron okay?"

I looked over my shoulder to see Kameron on his hands and knees next to the ship's ramp, looking as if he was either going to cry or kiss the ground. "Yeah, he'll be fine. It's good to see you, man." Ben shook Felix's hand.

"Uh, hi. We don't know you." Emily interjected. She adjusted the straps on her backpack, then offered him her hand. "Emily Davenport."

"I'm Felix Benson. I also go by Apollo, if you prefer." Felix introduced him. "I'm Horace Diaz's sidekick."

"Oh, cool." I shook his hand. "Noah Parker. This is Charlotte Dooley, and Naomi Davenport."

"It's nice to meet you. From what Seraphina tells me, you all have an important mission." He looked around at us. "I'll do everything I can to help."

"Thank you." Naomi nodded gratefully at him.

"I hate ships." Kameron announced, walking back over to us. "So, what's the plan?"

"Well, I had your ship approved as a medical shipment carrying volunteers from Earth, so no one should question why you're here if you're wearing these." Felix pulled a handful of lanyards out of his bag, each one with Calderan writing on it along with the Mighty Med 2.5. symbol. "As for the plan…"

He trailed off with a sigh. "What's wrong?" Sera stepped away from him, frowning deeply. He hesitated. "Felix?"

"There was an attack a few days ago." He said solemnly. Sera's face fell, her eyes widening.

"I thought your planet has force fields protecting it." Charlotte frowned. He nodded.

"A proton bomb broke through into downtown – it's not the first time." He looked back at Sera. "We managed to evacuate most of that sector, so there weren't many casualties, but the main labs were destroyed."

"Including the one working on the engine upgrade?" Emily's eyes widened. That had been the biggest part of the plan. Everything counted on us getting that engine.

"Yes." To our distraught, Felix nodded solemnly.

"Unfortunately, yes." He confirmed. We all exchanged looks. I could see my despair mirrored on the others' faces, along with looks of disappointed and frustration. Without the engine design, our mission was over. We hadn't prepared for a four-month mission, and even with the extra supplies we'd packed in anticipating for doubling our crew once we found our parents, there wasn't going to be enough.

"The scientists?" Emily asked after a moment. I could see her mind whirling, scrambling to come up with a new plan. She looked between Felix and Ben and Naomi uncertainly. "Maybe we could convince one of them to help?"

"I do have a lead on someone who escaped the ruins alive." Felix confirmed. "I haven't been able to totally track her down though."

"We'll take it. Do you know where she is?" Naomi questioned.

"Somewhere on the northern outskirts. They're really not talking to foreigners right now." He admitted sheepishly. He looked at Sera. "Are you familiar with Dr. Sabiya Seif?"

Seraphina shook her head and turned to Ben. "I don't know Dr. Seif, but I am familiar with the area, and I am half-Calderan. She might talk to me." She suggested. Ben nodded thoughtfully.

"Noah and I will go with you." He decided. She looked like she was going to protest, but Ben didn't give her a chance. "There was just a bombing. If something happens and you're alone, we won't be able to help or even know that you're in trouble."

"Fine." Seraphina allowed.

"What about us?" Kira questioned.

"Don't say go back on the ship." Kameron pleaded. Naomi shot him a kind smile.

"Well, we're here as volunteers, right?" She glanced at Felix for confirmation. "So we'll volunteer."

"There's plenty of non-medical things that you can do to help." Felix added, glancing around. Naomi turned to Ben.

"Meet us at Mighty Med when you've convinced the scientist to help us." She suggested. Ben nodded and gave her a kiss on the cheek before turning to Sera and I.

"Lead the way." He instructed.

**Naomi's POV**

I stepped away from the wall, pleased when I saw that the bolts we'd nailed into the ends were holding, the wall standing steadily.

After Ben, Sera, and Noah had left, Felix had led us to a camp of survivors from the recent attacks, where help was most needed. Emily, Kira, and Kameron had opted to follow him to Mighty Med (though Kira had promised to come back quickly with some more supplies) and Charlotte had walked away after spending no more than three minutes here, but Kira and I had stayed to help out where we could. In my case, that meant helping some of the other Calderans put up temporary shelters for the survivors to stay in until new caves were dug out and reinforced for living in.

The camp wasn't all that different than Earth refugee camps, with too many people stranded and alone and not enough supplies or shelter to go around. There was barely enough food, most of which looked stale and barely edible, and water was scarce. Almost everyone was living in tents or, for the luckier ones, in small wooden shelters like the one I'd just helped put up. Calderan people were minimalists and could survive on very little – they did live in caves, for God's sake – but even this was…awful. It wasn't even my first time in a place like this – the summer before my first college semester, I'd participated in a Davenport Industries funded outreach program where we similarly helped in a refugee camp in a South African country – but it didn't do much to make it any easier to see innocent people in this kind of situation. And while I was kind of annoyed with Charlotte for leaving as quickly as she did, a part of me understood. She'd been more sheltered by this kind of thing growing up, and I could see the shock on her face before she'd left without a word.

"Lunch time!" Kira's voice called, getting my and the workers' attentions. She was walking around the square in the center of the camp, carrying a basket full of small, silver packages around. Five young Calderan children were mimicking her, handing out silver packages from buckets of their own.

"I see you've invested in child labor." I commented, walking over to her as a line started in front of her. I grabbed some packages from her basket, beginning to hand them out so she could keep her hold on the basket.

"They just started following me when I got back." Kira shook her head with a smile. "And when they saw me pulling boxes off the back of the ATV, they insisted on helping."

"I think they like you." I commented, glancing over her shoulder at a little black haired Calderan boy, probably no older than 6, who kept sneaking glances at Kira. The pyrokinetic laughed at that, smiling at me and the Calderan woman who'd come to grab some food.

"They saw your flying earlier." The older woman – Sydney, if I remembered her name correctly – told her. Kira frowned.

"I wanted to see the mountains better." She commented. Sydney chuckled. "We don't have sights like that on Earth."

"Flying's a rare gift, even for those of us with multiple abilities. It's always popular with the children." She explained before moving on. Kira sighed.

"You know who would also be popular with the kids? Charlotte." She commented, sounding annoyed. I hummed, not wanting to get into this now, but Kira wasn't happy at all. "I can't believe she just walked away like that."

"Not everyone can stomach this kind of thing, Kira." I said gently. She gave me a look. "Look, just focus on what you're doing, not what Charlotte isn't, alright?"

"It's just not right. They need the help." She stressed. She looked past her line of people and at the endless array of tents and huts. "This is so wrong."

"This is war." I said gravely. "It doesn't matter where you're from or who you are…it only leaves devastation and destroyed lives in its wake."

"I wish there was something we can do." Kira sighed, shaking her head. I nodded solemnly. Unfortunately, there was little we actually could do. We could stop a criminal here, even a team of them, but ending an intergalactic war was beyond our capabilities. We weren't soldiers, and there were too few of us to begin with. "I…" I looked over at her when she trailed off. She was worrying her lip, barely paying attention to the people taking food from her. "I didn't really get how important my parents' mission was, not really. Why they would abandon everything when Caldera had its own heroes. And now, it was all for nothing."

"Kira." I placed my hand on her shoulder gently. She shook her head.

"We have to stop them. The Venusians. We have to stop them." She muttered.

"We're not soldiers, Kira." I reminded her.

"But we're not civilians either." She replied, looking back at me. Her brow furrowed in confusion. "What the hell is she carrying?"

"Hm?" I turned to see Charlotte walking back into camp, carrying two, long silver tubes under one arm, and a black box under the other. "Charlotte?"

"Sorry it took me so long; I had to stop at Mighty Med to get Emily's help with the solar panels." She apologized, dropping to her knees next to Kira, releasing the items under her arms.

"Solar panels?" I repeated, confused. "Charlotte, where have you been?"

"I went back to the ship." She explained. She looked up at Sydney, who'd walked over when she saw Charlotte return. Charlotte looked up at the Calderan with a smile. "Where's the most popular part of the camp? I want to set these up somewhere everyone will have access."

"…What are they?" Sydney questioned. Charlotte gestured at the silver tubes.

"Food synthesizers. They'll produce three times as much food as the supplies you're getting, and thanks to Emily, they're now solar powered." She explained before glancing at us. "We didn't need all three of the ones on the ship."

I smiled softly at the girl, a little proud that that was why she'd disappeared. "What about the box?"

"I am going to build an atmospheric water generator." She declared. At Kira's confused look. "It'll produce water from the humidity, give the people some decent drinking water."

"And you know how to do this?" I asked uncertainly. Charlotte nodded.

"Emily and I built one for our term project after Darius and Marcus…well, you know." She explained. Kira stared at her.

"What happened to baking soda volcanos?" She questioned. Charlotte gave her a look telling her exactly what she thought about that idea before turning to the kids.

"Who wants to help me?" She asked, immediately getting a bunch of excited volunteers for her project.

**Noah's POV**

The trek up into the northern outskirts – though how Sera knew we were headed north even though we'd never passed a city was beyond me – was made in almost complete silence. It was eerie really, the only sounds being our footsteps and the wind blowing across the rocky planet, bits of sand rising with the gust.

"Is it normally this quiet?" I asked after a long time, keeping my tone quiet for a reason I didn't quite understand myself. Sera pressed her lips together before pushing onwards, climbing the rocky mountain just a little bit faster. As we finally made it to the top, I caught sight of a massive crater, deep in the valley below. The rock around it wasn't the strange mix of red, brown, and orange that the rest of the planet was made up of; instead, it was the color of charcoal, the color only returning to normal far away from the center.

"That used to Silica City." Seraphina murmured quietly, staring out at the crater. Ben glanced at me, then at Sera.

"Is that where you grew up?" He asked, gently. She shook her head quickly, though she looked no less upset at the sight.

"No. Mom and Dad preferred a place closer to Mighty Med. And Hapax's cave is ten miles in that direction." She gestured vaguely to our left. "But I…it's our capital city. Felix and I would hang out in the market on weekends when he was up over the summer, and when Mom had meetings with the Calderan Council, I'd tag along to go visit the Dorenbosch kennel."

"The what?" I questioned, staring at her. Ben smacked me in the arm and shook his head. "Oh. I'm sorry, Sera."

"It's...it's fine. C'mon." She turned away from the crater and looked back at the mountain range in front of us, squaring her shoulders purposefully. "So, there should be a cave system in here. The entrance is somewhere on this side, I think. If the scientist that Felix told us about really did escape up here, he'll be in those caves."

"Alright. Let's spread out, see if we can't find that cave entrance." Ben suggested. He didn't wait for a response before walking away to check for a cave entrance.

"He is still really annoyed with us, isn't he?" I questioned rhetorically. Seraphina cracked a smile and responded anyway.

"Well, we did kidnap him." She pointed out, carefully making her way down the side of the mountain to get a better view. I followed her, figuring that if anyone would find the cave, it would be the girl who came from this planet rather than the two idiots from Earth.

"It's been two days. He has to get over it eventually." I rolled my eyes dramatically, and she shook her head, still smiling a little. I grinned back at her before turning to scan the mountain side.

"So, you and Felix seem close." I mentioned. She glanced at me. "I mean, you've just never mentioned any other friends from Caldera before." She hesitated. "I don't mean to pry, sorry."

"No, I...I just don't have any other real friends here." She admitted. I stared at her, stunned. "Keep looking."

"But...how is that possible? You're one of the nicest people I know." With the way she'd adapted to Earth pretty fast, I had just assumed that she'd been one of the popular kids on Caldera. Or at the very least, have her own group of friends that we'd have to try and tell apart while we were here. "You managed to become friends with Emily, of all people."

"She's not that bad." Seraphina rolled her eyes. I gave her a look.

"She can be a right prick when she wants to be and everyone knows it." I retorted. She just sighed and shrugged.

"I didn't really fit in." She explained. I looked at her and she gestured to herself with one hand. "Literally. I look too human to be Calderan, and Calderans weren't exactly the friendliest race to off-worlders before the war. But I look too Calderan for them to treat me like a guest, so..." She shrugged again. I frowned. I'd never really thought about how Sera's human aspects would set her apart from the others here. "It's fine, really. I have Felix, and one good friend is better than a bunch of bad ones who only care about whether or not you 'fit in'."

"Eight good ones." I corrected. She glanced at me. "Hate to break it to you, Storm, but you're stuck with us now."

She smirked. "Is that right, Parker?" She teased. I was about to reply when I heard a shout.

"Over here!" Ben was standing in front of a large looking rock. Sera and I exchanged looks and ran over to him. As I slowed to a stop, I caught sight of the seven-foot-tall crack in the mountain, a dim, flickering light coming from inside. "Found it."

"Careful." Sera cautioned as I went to climb into the cave. "There could be a dragon's nest in there. You should let me go first."

Ben and I stared at her as she walked past me and climbed in through the crack, one hand out as if to ward off any danger that tried to come close. After a moment, I shrugged and followed her.

"I'm sorry," Ben fell in behind us, his pace slower and more hesitant. "You guys have dragons?"

**xxx**

The Calderan cave system were actually pretty cool. They were nothing like the Centium City tunnels - they were lit up with torches instead of LEDs, uneven rocky floors instead of flattened cement and asphalt - but that only made them more interesting. If these were on Earth, I could definitely see myself taking a weekend to just explore them. Spelunking was a hobby that one of my buddies from high school had gotten me into, and I'd always wanted to take Blake when we were together, but she'd never really be interested in this kind of thing. It had been forever since I'd gone myself, come to think of it. Maybe when we got back to Earth, once everything was calmed down and hopefully the Calderan-Venusian war was over (though how the hell we hoped to accomplish that was beyond me), I could go again. You know, assuming we survived this crazy trip.

Eventually, we started coming across small caves leading off of the main cavern tunnel. Most of them were unoccupied and whatever was living in the other ones wasn't Calderan or human (Sera insisted that they weren't baby dragons, just some scaly lizard-like creatures that were about as common as the earth house spider, but Ben and I weren't totally convinced).

"Maybe we should go back, check a different cavern system?" I suggested as Sera scared off one of the lizard things.

"Hold on...I think I see something down there." Ben insisted. Sera and I glanced at each other but shrugged.

"After you." Sera told him. He nodded and led the way down the cavern. After a few moments, we caught sight of what Ben's superhuman eyes had seen - a warm light emanating from one of the caverns.

"That's not a dragon, right?" I questioned. Sera gave me a look. Ben just shook his head and sighed before stepping into the cave.

Stepping inside, I saw that the light was coming from a small stream of lava coming from a crack in the wall and spilling into a rock-outlined basin at the bottom. There was a small boulder set in front of a larger, but flat, rock, almost like a stool and a table, along with large, flat rocks used to hold small items around the room.

"Hello?" Ben called as we followed him into the cave. It appeared empty to me, but one should never assume anything about alien planets.

"Who the hell are you?" I spun around to see a Calderan woman standing behind me, a pinkish-red plasma ball formed in the palm of her hand, ready to fire at us.

"Um..." Sera trailed off, looking at the woman for a moment, seeming suddenly hesitant. She must remind her of her mom, I realized with a start.

"I'm Noah." I stepped in, getting the woman's attention. "This Ben and Sera. Are you Dr. Seif?"

"What's it to you?" She demanded, stepping forward threatening.

"We need your help." Ben told her. She scoffed.

"I don't help humans." She sneered. Seraphina stepped forward, giving the scientist a good look at her.

"I'm not human." She said simply, raising her chin confidently. Dr. Seif examined her for a moment.

"You're not quite Calderan either, are you?" She hummed. She frowned. "You're that girl, Dr. Short and Skylar Storm's daughter."

"Seraphina Storm." Sera introduced herself, meeting the woman's gaze. Dr. Seif slowly lowered her hand.

"How'd you find me?" She questioned.

"Apollo heard a rumor you'd escaped the attack." Sera explained. The woman nodded.

"Diaz's sidekick. I remember him." She acknowledged. She sighed and walked past us, towards where a black pot was hovering over the lava basin. "What do you want? I'm cooking."

"We need your help." Ben said again. "You were working on the engine prototype, right?"

To our surprise, she chuckled darkly. "If that's what you're looking for, you're looking under the wrong rock, blondie. I can't help you."

"Please. We need that engine. There are lives at stake." I pleaded with her. She turned to face us, crossing her arms.

"There are always lives at stake, kid." She reminded me. Sera sighed.

"You know of my parents, right?" She asked. Dr. Seif hesitated, then nodded.

"Your mother fought for our research to continue during the war. She lost that fight, but a Calderan fighting for something other than an actual fight? That's memorable." She admitted. She looked over at Seraphina. "I respected her. And your father wasn't bad, for an off-worlder."

"They left the planet in order to try and stop this war, peacefully. But they're in trouble, and they need our help." Sera explained. "We can save them and maybe come up with a new plan to stop the bloodshed, but without that engine, it's going to take us four times as long, at least."

Dr. Seif sighed. "I can't help you." She told Sera. Sera sighed in annoyance.

"You said you respected my mother, but you're still okay with letting her die?" She questioned. Dr. Seif narrowed her eyes at the cryokinetic.

"I didn't say that." She growled.

"You ran away, hid in a cave. What else is she supposed to think?" I questioned. Dr. Seif sent me a look.

"We all live in caves, Earthling." She pointed out, sounding like she was trying not to lose her patience. Sera shook her head.

"Doesn't make him wrong." She insisted. Dr. Seif sighed.

"I see you're as fond of humans as Skylar." She commented. Sera didn't answer, but smirked. "I can't help you because I didn't work on the engine. I'm a chemist. I helped design the fuel, not the engine. The prototypes were destroyed."

"There's got to be something you can do." Ben pleaded hopefully. She looked at him carefully. "We came all this way; we can't turn back empty handed."

Dr. Seif glanced over her shoulder. "I did take the surviving plans." She admitted. "It's not much though; they're damaged and incomplete at best. A skilled engineer might be able to scrape something together from it, but as I said, I'm not an engineer."

"Don't worry, we've got two." Ben smiled, almost seeming proud. Dr. Seif looked at him, then at me, and finally at Sera.

"Not all Calderans want a fight." She said eventually before walking over to one of the rocky shelves. She pulled a small, circular tab out from behind an abstract, black statue. She offered it to Sera. "Your mother understood that. This war needs to end."

"We'll do our best." Seraphina promised. Dr. Seif nodded.

"Good. If you're anything like your parents, that should be interesting to see." She observed.

**Kameron's POV**

Mighty Med was in a frenzy when we arrived, doctors and nurses rushing around the cavernous hospital, going between examination rooms and the large triage center in the emergency room. There were patients everywhere – on top of gurneys, sitting on rocks around the triage center, and even, sadly, sitting around the entrance to the hospital. The hospital staff were clearly overwhelmed, never having faced crisis like this prior to the war in the nearly seventeen years since it had opened.

The moment I'd told Dr. Emery, the Calderan doctor Oliver had put in charge in his absence, that I'd been working as my mother's assistant in the NLH med bay for the past couple of years, he assigned me to help the nurses with their duties. I spent what must have been at least seven hours bandaging minor injuries, calming panicking civilians (especially the kids), and doing whatever else they would let me do without having gone to medical school.

It was much, much later when I was finally told to take a break. I found Emily in one of the back rooms, lying on her back beneath a piece of heavy looking machine. Her hands were raised towards the machine, her fingers moving quickly as if she was typing, but as far as I could tell, she wasn't touching it at all.

"…Whatcha doing?" I asked after a moment, watching her. Her fingers paused for a moment before continuing, her eyes never leaving the machine.

"I'm trying to repurpose this old food machine into an x-ray machine. It doesn't make food anymore, and radiology is backed up like crazy." She explained. I frowned and knelt down next to her.

"Can you even do that?" I questioned skeptically. She snorted. "I'll take that as a yes."

"My mother once repurposed a toaster into a power source for a computer. If she can do that, I can sure as hell do this." She growled. Suddenly, the bottom of the machine sparked near her fingers, and she let out a surprised cry before cursing under her breath. "Damn it."

"Take a break, c'mon." I sat down and patted the ground next to me. She sighed dramatically, but obediently pulled herself out from under the machine. I offered her the _Viridi Bar_ I'd taken from the rations supply food court. She broke the greenish food bar in half and handed part of it back to me before sniffing it suspiciously.

"What is it?" She questioned.

"I have no idea." I admitted, sniffing it myself. It didn't smell like anything to me, but the greenish-brown shade didn't make it look all that appetizing. "But it is food."

Emily hesitated, then nibbled a little on the end. She frowned, chewing slowly. "Tastes like…burnt broccoli, but with…I think that's peanut butter."

I looked at her, half expecting her to smirk and tell me the truth, but when she didn't, I took a bite of my half. I forced myself not to gag at the peculiar taste. "You are right about that." I grimaced, swallowing. I stared at the bar. "I can't believe these are their rations."

"Whoever made these is an idiot." Emily commented. I raised an eyebrow, then turned over the bar to reveal the Davenport Industries logo on its wrapper. "Thanks Mom. You suck."

"Hey." I scolded gently. Emily rolled her eyes. "You know she's probably really worried about us right now."

"That's why you left the note. To make her not worry." She said nonchalantly. I looked at her and was about to tell her off for being mean to her mom, when there was a knock on the door.

"Kameron? Emily?" Felix's head poked in. He smiled when he saw us. "Hey, I thought I'd check in. You guys doing alright?"

I sighed. "Is it always this bad?" I asked. Emily glanced at me sympathetically. Felix sighed.

"The past year, yeah. It didn't use to be." He admitted, walking into the room. He sat down on a rock across from us. "Horace used to send me here every summer as part of my training. I'd spend it treating idiots who let their roughhousing get too far, hypothermia, and the occasional illness. Nothing like this."

"Hypothermia?" Emily repeated skeptically. "It's nearly 5,000 degrees here."

"A whole 100 degrees colder than it was thirty years ago. Climate change, man." Felix replied. At Emily's continuously confused look, he chuckled. "Calderans are so used to the heat that they get cold really easily. Hypothermia's not uncommon with the elderly or the young during the winter months. The only reason Skylar and Sera didn't have bad reactions going to Earth is because of their powers."

"She is cryokinetic." I mentioned. Felix nodded.

"But yeah, it didn't use to be this bad." He explained. "Now it's just…" he sighed. "Horace has sent so many of us to help, but we're still overwhelmed."

"I wish there was something we can do." Emily sighed. Felix offered her a smile.

"You've managed to fix almost all of our broken tech, and repurpose a lot of older stuff. That's helped. And Kameron, I saw you with those kids earlier. That was nice work." He complimented. Emily frowned.

"What did you do?" She inquired. I shrugged.

"There was a little girl who was freaking out because she and her dad were hurt. I calmed her down enough for me to stitch up her leg. It's not a big deal." I brushed it off. Felix shook his head.

"You calmed a patient down so that we could treat her. Being able to talk to patients like that, that's a necessity that a lot of nurses and doctors here are missing. It saves time and pain on both sides, which is vital." Felix insisted. "And that was nice stitch work. It probably won't eve scar that badly. We need more people like that."

I shrugged. "Hey." Emily elbowed me gently. "Take the compliment."

"If you want to help, come back after you save your parents. Preferably with your mom, your dad, and Oliver along with you. We need all the help we can get." He told us before climbing to his feet. "Alright. I got a message from Ben. They should be back in a couple of hours time. You up for another hour or two of work?"

I sighed, then nodded. I quickly swallowed the rest of my rations bar before looking back at the food machine Emily was trying to repurpose. "Good luck with that."

"Thank you." She smirked, taking another bite of her bar before lying back and pulling herself back underneath the machine. "Okay, you done being cranky? Are you going to work with me now?"

**Noah's POV**

Emily and Charlotte spent a long time going through Dr. Seif's engine plans, mumbling softly to each other as they examined them thoughtfully. Like Dr. Seif had said, the plans were damaged and fragmented, and it was clear that they were having difficulties putting it all together. But after almost thirty minutes, the rest of us were anxious for an answer.

"Well?" Ben questioned, stopping his impatient pacing to look at the girls. They exchanged looks, then quickly turned around to whisper between themselves. Ben threw him hands up in the air in annoyance, sending a look at Naomi. She motioned for him to be patient but crossed her arms with a sigh.

After a moment, the girls turned back towards us, and Emily offered us a sheepish smile. "Maybe." She replied, spreading her hands helplessly.

"Maybe." Kira repeated.

"Maybe." Charlotte confirmed.

"We think we can apply the technology from their prototype engines to our own, which will thankfully save us a lot of time and effort." Emily rushed to explain. "Most of the material we need can be found at Mighty Med or we can take it from the ship itself."

"Most, however, does not mean all." Charlotte added. "We're missing some key components that we can't get here."

"Okay." Kameron nodded. "But you said maybe."

"We did." Emily confirmed. "We're going to improvise. But we think we can make it work."

"Maybe." Naomi repeated. Charlotte pointed at Naomi with a confident smile.

"Maybe." She agreed. Ben sighed and looked at us.

"Well, we've come this far." He decided. "Maybe it is."


	3. Scavenger Hunt

**Ben's POV**

"Good morning. I brought Felix with me." Sera greeted, the two of them walking into the Davenship's galley, looking well-rested and eager to begin the day. Sera had opted to go stay at her parents place overnight, wanting to grab a few things from her place and to make sure everything was still okay there after the attack earlier in the week. I suspected that it was also to settle a sense of homesickness for her – I'd seen the look on her face when she'd seen Caldera through the Davenship's viewing windows and could tell how much she had missed the volcanic planet. She seemed to be in a much better mood than I'd seen her in a while, rejuvenated by the trip back home. Felix too seemed in relatively good spirits, I noted. They directly contrasted Emily, who was glaring at the food processor with tired dismay in her eyes. She practically hissed at Sera and Felix as they passed her, before the technopath gave up on the food processor and dropped into a seat across from me. Sera eyed her in concern as she and Felix settled between Naomi and Kira at the table. "What's with you?"

"This ship hates me." Emily muttered, pulling the sleeves of her oversized blue sweater over her hands before resting her head on the covered palms.

"She doesn't like the coffee from the food processor." Kameron supplied from where he was eating his breakfast.

"That's not coffee, that's hot, brown water." Emily scowled. She shook her head. "The food processor can make anything, even those-" she gestured at the pop tart that Kira was attempting to swallow whole, the pyrokinetic pausing when Emily pointed at her, "but it can't make a decent cup of coffee. Figures."

"It's not the end of the world. You'll survive." I chided. She sent me a look. "You will."

"We won't, not once she starts going through caffeine withdrawal." Noah chimed in, the last to join us. "Anyone want to take bets on who she kills first once she snaps?"

"No need. You're top of the list." Emily mumbled. Noah feigned an offended look, while Kira chuckled in amusement.

"Well, that would solve the sleeping arrangement issue." She commented. At the confused looks, she frowned. "I can't have been the only one who noticed?"

"Noticed what?" Sera frowned. Charlotte chuckled a little.

"We did a bed count when we first boarded the ship. Seven bedrooms, either with two single beds or a double. So, fourteen people have places to sleep." She explained. Sera nodded slowly.

"Okay?" She questioned, not seeing the problem. Emily sighed.

"Eight of us, seven parents. Fifteen people." She explained. "Someone's gonna be on the couch in the lounge for the trip back."

Her head perked up immediately and she added a quick "Not it," at the same time as Charlotte, Sera, Noah, and the twins. I shook my head at their childness.

"Why wouldn't Calla include enough beds? It's not like her to forget something like that." Sera questioned, frowning. I sighed.

"She didn't. My team was only supposed to be seven people, not eight." I reminded them. I hadn't considered the sleeping arrangements before now, but I sure as hell wasn't going to be sleeping on the couch. "We'll figure out the sleeping arrangements when we get to that point. Without killing Noah." I added, glancing at Emily.

"At least not until after he helps us finish the engine." Naomi added with a smile. I looked at her in exasperation, but her words seemed to do the trick to get the kids focused on the task at hand.

"Yeah, right." Emily nodded, sitting up properly. She rubbed a hand over her face briefly, then nodded. "Okay, yeah. I'm awake. We have work to do."

"Em and I were up for most of the night trying to set the engines up as much as we can." Charlotte announced, also perking up. "And we did get most of it done."

"Well, half done." Emily corrected. "But it was the more difficult half, so the rest should be easy."

"I'm sensing there's a 'but' coming." Kameron observed. Charlotte nodded reluctantly.

"Yeah. We're missing a few parts." She admitted. "Most of them we can either make do without or improvise with what we have on the ship, but there's still three that we need."

"First, this navigation chip." Emily removed her Davenwatch and placed it in the center of the table. As soon as she placed it down, a hologram showing the chip in question. "The bad news is that it's a specialty item, so we probably won't be able to buy it anywhere around here. The good news is that up until a few years ago, they were pretty standard in most Calderan ships."

"How is that good news if they stopped using them?" Kameron raised his hand as he asked his question.

"Because it means that the shipyard outside of town should be chalk full of them." Felix answered before Emily, Charlotte, or Sera could. "It's where the Calderans dump the ships that are too old or too damaged to fly anymore."

"Digging around in old ships for parts? Sounds fun." Noah commented, smirking. I nodded at Charlotte. "You in?"

"You know it." She smirked back. Naomi nodded.

"I'll go with them." She said, glancing at me. "Keep them out of trouble."

"I resent that." Noah commented, half-heartedly. Charlotte snorted.

"Nah, she's got a point." The younger girl admitted before going back to the matter at hand. "The second part, on the other hand, should be easier to get our hands on. There's a part we need for our motherboard that looks like this."

She waved her hand over the hologram and the image changed to a different type of computer chip. "It's a very specific part, but from what Sera's told us about the Lahar Village Bazaar, we should be able to buy or trade for it there."

"I'll take that one." I volunteered before glancing at Sera. "You know the way?"

She nodded. "It's not that far."

"I'm coming too. It's too specific a part; we need to be sure we get the right one, and I'll know what to look for." Emily added. I nodded.

"Wait, how are we supposed to pay for it? I doubt they take visa here." Naomi pointed out.

"I have some money stored away that I don't mind using it." Sera volunteered.

"We'll pay you back when we get back To Earth." I assured her. She shrugged, not particularly caring.

"What about the final part?" Kira questioned. Emily nodded and changed the hologram into what looked almost like a small wheel, but with a diamond design cut into the sides. "And that is?"

"Well, I'm not going to get overly technical on you, because _apparently not everyone appreciates learning about how this technology works._ " She sent a glare at Noah. Judging by the lack of surprise on his face, he must have said something when I wasn't around and didn't seem to regret his words at all. "Basically, it's a paper weight for turning lava into magma – because that's something Calderans call a paperweight for some bizarre reason – but with a few adjustments, I can make it so that it turns our earth fuel into a form that's more compatible with the new engine upgrades."

"How?" Kameron questioned, frowning in confusion. Noah raised a hand before she could answer.

"Don't. You'll just be even more confused." He told the boy. Emily shook her head.

"It'll take time to explain the science to you anyway. It's complicated, even for me. The point is, the engine upgrades are useless to us without it." She explained before sighing. "The problem is-"

"You say that a lot." Kira interjected.

"-that it's a one of a kind piece." Emily continued as if the pyrokinetic had never spoken. "One of the Calderan elders has it – it was some sort of retirement gift, apparently."

"So, we're stealing from an old lady?" Kira asked. Emily looked at her.

"What? No! We're heroes, not jerks." She shook her head. "Sera?"

"I already got in contact with her last night." Seraphina explained. "She said she'd be willing to let it go if we send someone to do a couple of chores for her."

"What kinds of chores?" Kameron asked. Sera shrugged.

"She didn't say." She replied. The twins exchanged looks.

"Guys, she's a little old lady. It can't be that bad." Naomi rolled her eyes. Felix chuckled.

"I'd go with you guys, but I have a shift in about an hour." He told them. "But when it's over, I'll come back and finish the rest of those upgrades to the engine for you, Emily."

"I knew I liked you." The technopath smiled at the healer. I stood up.

"Alright. Come back here when you get your part." I told the others. "With any luck, we'll be on our way to Venusia before nightfall."

**Naomi's POV**

"This place is so cool!" Charlotte grinned widely, spinning around to try and see as much of the ship yard as possible. I chuckled a little at her excitement. I could see why she'd feel so at home here - there were spaceships as far as the eye could see, all varying in age and degrees of visible damage. This was probably like candy store for engineers like her, full of the unexpected.

"Eye on the prize, Charlotte." I cautioned. She sighed and stopped.

"Okay." She agreed reluctantly, rolling her eyes. "But we are so coming back here after we save everyone."

"Why don't we just take one of these ships?" Noah asked, confused. "It'd probably be easier to repair one of them than change our engine entirely."

"Em and I talked about that, but the engine design that we're using is so new that it's unlikely that any of these ships has it already." Charlotte answered, ducking under a ship's bow, resting her hand on the metal siding. "So we'd be in the same position we are now, but with a damaged ship that might not be big enough for everyone to fit inside."

"Alright, why don't we split up?" I suggested, looking around. Odds were that most of the ships would have the chip in them, but I didn't want to waste time by going one by one. "We each take a ship, and the first one to find what we're looking for...is pardoned from bathroom duty for the remainder of the trip."

Noah paled. "Has anyone been in there since Kameron?"

"Nope." Charlotte popped the P, clearly liking the terms. "Which is why I'm going to win."

Without waiting for a response, the younger girl scampered off to the nearest ship, wasting no time to find an entrance. I laughed a little before walking over to a different ship. This one looked a bit similar to my dad's private jet, but with much smaller wings and some sort of turret where vertical stabilizer should have been.

"How the hell do these things get off the ground?" I muttered to myself, walking around the base of the ship in search for an entrance. It wasn't hard to find - there was a panel at the bottom of the widest part of the ship left wide open, a ladder descending from it. "Score one for the good guys."

I ascended the ladder quickly, using my Davenwatch as a flashlight as I entered the dark ship. The inside was a long, mostly empty corridor. I could see thick panels on either side of the corridor, the kind you could pull down to use as a seat, but aside from them and a few empty-looking crates, there wasn't much in the corridor.

"Okay, if that was a gun turret, then this is probably the cockpit." I mumbled to myself, looking towards what I figured was the front of the ship. Walking towards it, I could see a smaller door, mostly hidden by shadows. It was ajar, with a little light filtering through. Stepping inside, I saw that the light was coming through a viewing window, but more importantly, I saw the control console. "Oh no."

The console was utterly destroyed, parts having been ripped out at all ends of it. It looked as if whoever had been in here first had stolen anything that looked like it could be useful and left the mess for someone else to deal with. "Damn it." I muttered.

I glanced out the window and saw Charlotte making her way from her first ship towards another one, a mildly annoyed look on her face. Concerned, I turned around to leave the ship.

"Hey!" Noah called to me just as I finished climbing down my ladder. "You find one?"

"No. My engine's been stripped." I replied. He frowned.

"You too?" He questioned, surprised. I nodded, a little surprised. "What about Charlotte?"

"I saw her heading that way." I nodded in the direction the girl had gone, towards the largest of the nearby ships. Noah nodded and led the way over there. "Charlotte?" I called as we approached the open door of the ship, just a few feet off the ground. There was a box lying on the ground near the entrance, probably to give the shorter girl a boost into the ship given that the entrance was about 5 feet off the ground.

"Give me a sec!" Her voice echoed through the ship. A few moments later, she reappeared in the doorway. "Someone else was here first. Both this one and the first ship I checked had their control consoles demolished by what looks like thieves. They took almost everything useful."

"Ours too." Noah replied, offering her a hand. She waved it away and hopped down to the ground.

"I'm short, not useless." She replied, rolling her eyes. She looked around and sighed. "I'd be willing to bet that every one of these ships have been stripped for parts too."

"Yeah, probably." I agreed. I shook my head. "We still have to check. Maybe we'll get lucky and they missed one of the ships."

"Maybe." Noah didn't sound too certain. I nodded towards the rest of the shipyard.

"C'mon." I encouraged. With a lot less enthusiasm, we all made our way through the shipyard. We tried checking a few more ships, but like the others, they'd all had their control consoles stolen from.

"Hey, did you hear that?" Charlotte questioned, pausing mid-step as she'd started climbing up a ladder.

"Uh, no?" Noah looked at me questioningly. I stopped as well, but didn't hear anything. I was about to ask Charlotte what she was talking about, when I finally did hear the sound of voices. They were quite quiet, but they were there.

"We're not alone." I murmured to Noah. He nodded and stepped away from the ship.

"I can speed over there, catch them from surprise." He offered. I shook my head.

"They're probably Calderan civilians." I reasoned, even though I was itching for my weapon myself. "They probably don't mean any harm."

"Probably." Charlotte repeated uncertainly.

"Stay on guard." I instructed. "Don't attack unless they do but be prepared for anything. Be cautious."

They both nodded and started to follow me as I cautiously led towards the source of the noise. Coming over the hill, we finally caught sight of the source: three Calderan teenagers, dragging along a hover-cart filled with ship parts.

"Hey! You're the ones who've been stealing from the ships!" Charlotte shouted, practically rushing down the hill. Noah and I stared at her.

"Does caution mean nothing to her?" I muttered.

"Apparently not." Noah shook his head before racing after her. I jogged after them as they made their way down the hill.

"It's public property!" One of the Calderan boys, the one wearing a pale green shirt, argued immediately. "It's free to take, and besides, no one cares about this stuff."

"We do." Charlotte argued.

"You're not even Calderan. You're just one of those volunteers." The boy in the red shirt pointed out.

"We have more right to this stuff than you do." The Calderan girl added.

"Whoa, whoa, we don't want to fight." I quickly cautioned. "We were just looking for a specific part."

"It's a navigation piece, kinda looks like this." Noah raised his Davenwatch and used it to show them a hologram of the piece. The red-shirted boy glanced back at the cart, towards one of the many buckets. "You found some, right?"

"Who says that we did?" The girl questioned, crossing her arms.

"The fact that almost every ship in this yard would have had one in them." I challenged. "I'm guessing they're all in that bucket over there."

"And if they are?" She asked. "They're ours, now."

"We just need one. Please." Noah pleaded with the girl. She glanced back at her friends, and the boy in the green shirt stepped forward.

"We'll sell you one for 16 _kor_. Or for 3 pieces of Zandoran tech." He offered, smirking. I hesitated.

"How much is that in American?" I whispered to Noah. He sighed.

"We don't have any money." He told them.

"Then you're out of luck too." The girl said.

"C'mon, man, what do you need all of them for anyway?" Charlotte questioned.

"We're going to sell them at the market tomorrow." The boy in the red shirt replied. "We're going to use the money to get us tickets to Zandor."

"Emmanuel!" The girl snapped at him. He shrugged.

"We're not doing anything wrong, Sonja. There's no harm in telling them. Everyone's trying to get off planet, anyway." He pointed out. I sighed.

"Look, we really do need that part. It's for an important mission." I told them. They hesitated. "Is there anyway we can make a deal?"

"I have an idea." The green-shirted boy spoke up. "You ever play Kulognia?"

"Kul...what?" Charlotte frowned. Sonja rolled her eyes.

"Really, Elijah?" She questioned, sounding annoyed.

"We've been out here all night. I could use a break. Besides, it'll be fun." He reasoned. He looked back at us. "You win, you get the part."

"And if you win?" I asked. He thought about it, then glanced at the hologram.

"Then we get your Earth tech. The one that makes the hologram." He decided. He glanced at his friends. "We could probably trade it at the market for something."

"Alright." Sonja allowed. She nodded and turned to us. "How about it?"

I looked back at Noah and Charlotte. Charlotte nodded excitedly, but Noah was a little more hesitant. "Alright..." I agreed slowly, hoping that Kulognia wasn't something incredibly dangerous. "We'll play you."

**Ben's POV**

"This is impressive." I commented, looking around. The Calderan bazaar reminded me of the street fairs that Naomi and I would go to every summer – booths as far as the eye could see, the air filled with excitement and abuzz with the sounds of people negotiating and trading. There were booths of all kinds – I could see some selling food, others selling technology, some selling junk, and some filled with items I didn't know how to categorize.

"Yeah. I used to love coming here with my parents." Seraphina replied, a small nostalgic smile forming on her face for a brief second before fading. "They used to be better though. Now, it's all about getting whatever supplies your family needs, since no one else is selling it."

"Well, let's find what we need quickly." I suggested. "That way we can get off this planet and get your parents back safe as soon as possible."

"Yeah…where's Emily?" The Calderan-Human paused, looking around in confusion. I looked around as well, not having realized we'd lost the technopath in the crowd. Thankfully, she stood out amongst the identical Calderan people, and we easily spotted her standing by a light pink booth down the main path between the booths.

"Found her." I told Sera before pushing through the crowd to meet up with her. "Hey, don't wander off."

"Look at this!" Emily shoved a piece of technology in my face, grinning widely. "It's a magnetic-gravity repulsion manipulator!" At my confused look, she rolled her eyes before continuing in a rushed, excited voice. "It creates portable anti-grav field anywhere you use it, and it doesn't even work off electricity. It stores solar radiation in it to power it. It can recreate Kieran's powers, but it's so much more powerful, and you can turn it on remotely, so you don't even have to be near it, and-"

"Whoa, whoa." I cautioned her. She scowled at me.

"It's cool." She insisted. I chuckled. "Charlotte would appreciate this."

"I'm sure she would, and if we have enough money to get it after we've bought the motherboard piece, then we'll come back and get it." I promised her. She beamed. "But can we focus on the job at hand?"

"Right, sorry." She shook herself. "It's just, it's not every day you get access to a bunch of alien tech."

"I know." I nodded sympathetically. She nodded back and immediately set off amongst the tech booths, looking for the motherboard piece. I spent the next couple of hours trying to coral the girls and keep them within my line of sight; Sera may not have looked exactly like the rest of the Calderan women, but she looked similar enough for me to lose her in the crowd, while Emily, despite her best efforts to stay focused, kept getting sidetracked by the Calderan and other-worldly technology.

"Em." I sighed, catching sight of her examining a piece of technology at a booth after looking for her for ten minutes. I understood her fascination with the tech – her excitement was on par with Naomi's love for photo art galleries and Kameron's reaction to discovering that Centium City had its own superhero museum – but I'd hoped to be out of here by now. Emily and I were drawing a lot of attention from the people, and I wasn't sure how much I liked that.

"No, no. This is it. This is the part." She told me, grinning at me. "We found it."

"Are you sure?" Sera questioned, materializing beside me. Emily nodded.

"It's exactly right." Emily confirmed, bobbing her head. I noticed the trader watching Emily with narrowed eyes, a scowl on his face. I cleared my throat and his attention locked onto me, his scowl not changing in the slightest.

"How much?" I questioned, pulling out the small bag of charcoal-black coins that we'd grabbed from Sera's place.

"We're not taking kor anymore. The announcement was made weeks ago." He growled, sounding annoyed. He sent me and Emily a glare. "Not that you off-worlders ever listen."

Emily shifted uncomfortable, subtly zipping up her sweater as if it could protect her from the look he was giving her. "They just arrived as volunteers a couple of days ago." Sera explained calmly. "They didn't know about the announcement. I didn't even know about the announcement."

The trader fixed her with an appraising look. "You're Storm's girl, right?" He questioned. She nodded.

"Yes sir." She agreed. He huffed.

"Another alien sympathizer." He commented, shaking his head. "Caldera was better off when we focused on our own people."

"Well, we would like to help the Calderan economy." Sera offered, purposefully ignoring his tone. "Is there any chance you could make an exception for the kor? We have enough, I'm sure of it."

He shook his head. "Nowhere is accepting kor these days. Can't buy food with money no one's taking." He replied. Sera sighed and his gaze softened. "I'm taking trade though. High-price items, durable clothing, weapons."

"Uhm…" I trailed off as we all checked our pockets to see what we had to trade. None of us had brought anything worthwhile – we hadn't even considered that no one would take our money. "Give us a second."

"I've got my Davenwatch, a swiss army knife, and a few extra screws from the ship." Emily offered as we turned around. I frowned.

"Should the ship have extra screws?" I questioned. She shrugged.

"Davenwatch, hair ties, and this friendship bracelet Kira insisted I wear." Seraphina offered, holding up with woven pink and blue bracelet with a sheepish smile. I didn't have anything that I could really trade – just my Davenwatch and half a granola bar.

"Give me the watches." I sighed. I took them and turned to the trader. "Three Davenwatches. They're Earth communication devices."

The trader looked at me, unimpressed. "That's it?" He questioned. I sighed.

"It's all we've got, man." I admitted. He raised an eyebrow, then looked past me at Emily.

"Winter's coming up – people are going to start needing warmer clothing soon. I could make a good trade with that sweater." He replied. Emily froze at his words. "I'll take the sweater and the communication devices."

"Is there anything else we can give you?" The technopath asked immediately, crossing her arms in front of her chest. I sighed; she was the only one wearing a sweater of any kind. I didn't really get why she'd brought it – it was far too hot here for it. Yet, she was strangely attached to it.

"Emily." I said warningly. She looked at me pleadingly.

"Ben." She murmured. I stared her down.

"You can buy a new one when we get back. The motherboard is more important." I insisted. She bit her lip, eyes big and pleading.

"Ben." Sera pulled on my arm. I turned to her, and she nodded at Emily. "It's Darius' sweater."

I sighed. "Of course it is." I muttered. Figures that the one thing that Emily wouldn't want to give up was the one thing the trader wanted. Emily sighed.

"It's fine. Like Ben said, I can buy a new one." She mumbled, disheartened. She bit her lip, then in a vey quick motion, pulled off the sweater and placed it on top of the booth. "I'm gonna…go see what's over there."

"Em." I called, but she was already walking away, heading for a booth far enough away.

"Attached, isn't she?" The trader seemed amused as he reached for the sweater. I placed my hand on it before he could take it.

"Wait." I sighed irritably. Emily was going to heartbroken if she lost this. "I think I have something else."

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a gold coin about the size of a quarter. I hadn't even considered trading it, and I still didn't want to, but I figured the trader would take it. I placed it on the table and looked at the trader impatiently. "What is it?" He asked, looking unimpressed.

"Aftershock." I announced loudly, and the voice recognition activated. A gold hologram appeared, an image of the letters NLH appearing above the coin with a ring spinning around it. The words 'servientes in nominee iustitia et pax' were engraved in the ring. The trader raised his chin, looking at it curiously before looking at me. "I'm a member of Earth's New League of Heroes. That's an ID chip that all heroes are given. One of ours tried to sell it online and it nearly went for 30,000$. I don't know how much that is worth here, but it's more than I make in a year back home. It's gotta be worth a lot here."

"This for the chip? Deal." The trader agreed too easily. I rolled my eyes and grabbed a second piece of technology off the table.

"This too." I added, not giving him a choice in the matter. I swiped the sweater off the table, along with the motherboard chip Emily had said we needed and stalked off to find the young genius.

"What is that?" Sera asked, catching up with me. She nodded at the second piece of tech I'd grabbed.

"It's an anti-grav thingy." I replied, remembering what Emily had said earlier. Sera nodded, though her brow was still furrowed. "We don't actually need it. I just wanted to get my trades' worth."

"I think you still got ripped off." She told me, apologetically. I nodded.

"Oh, I definitely did." I agreed as we finally found Emily, standing near a food booth. She was looking at the food uninterestedly. "Here." I told her, shoving the sweater into her arms, not unkindly. She stared at it, startled, before looking up at me with still watery eyes. "I am not going to be the one stuck on the couch once we save your parents."

"I…what did you trade?" She blinked, caught off guard.

"His NLH ID." Sera supplied before I could brush it off. "I didn't know you had that, actually."

"We all do." I admitted. I really shouldn't have been so bothered by giving it up – we had hundreds back at the base and heroes were always losing them – but Alivia had given it to me the day I'd graduated from being Optimo's sidekick and become a hero, and it had a lot of sentimental significance to me.

But if I'd let Emily trade away Darius' sweater, she would have cried and been heartbroken for the rest of the trip. That was the last thing any of us wanted.

"Thank you, Ben." Emily told me, giving me a tiny, not so sad smile as she hugged the sweater to her chest.

Yeah, I'd made the right choice.

"C'mon, let's go. Maybe the others are back already." I sighed.

**Naomi's POV**

Much to our utter relief, it turned out that Kulognia was a Calderan sport very similar to soccer. Well, the goal was to try and kick a ball (in this case replaced by a particularly round boulder that was a little bit bigger than a soccer ball) into a score zone. After that, the similarities kinda ended.

"Whoa!" Noah stumbled back, away from a hole in the ground as bright red lava bubbled up from it, nearly scalding his toes. "That's lava!"

"Uh, yeah?" Emmanuel looked at Noah in confusion, not understanding his surprise. He frowned. "You do know that if you get hit by any of that, you'll lose a point."

"I think I'll lose more than a point." Noah mumbled. Charlotte chuckled in amusement.

"So, all powers are on the table?" She questioned, walking over to the boulder. Despite its weight, she moved it around with ease, as if it weighed no more than a feather. She pulled the boulder back with her foot before kicking it up, the boulder landing on the top of her foot. She grinned. "This is going to be fun."

"I'm glad somebody thinks so." Elijah commented, glancing at Sonja. She shrugged.

"Let's just get this over with. Where are the dragons?" She questioned, looking around. Charlotte dropped the boulder.

"The what?" She demanded. Emmanuel sighed.

"They're an important part of the game." He explained before bringing his fingers up to his mouth. He whistled loudly, but to our relief, no dragons appeared.

"You know, I think we can play without-" I started, but Sonja was already shaking her head.

"No, there they are." She assured us, nodding towards the rocky hill nearby. Noah, Charlotte, and I all looked up, expecting to see giant, fire-breathing dragons descending from the sky.

"What are you looking at?" Elijah questioned. I turned to him, confused, but he was kneeling down to pet a small, scaly creature that had crawled out the cracks in the ground. It was scaly, but a far cry from the dragons we had been thinking of. It kinda looked like a black, scaly squirrel, if I was being honest.

"Oh my god, that's a dragon here?" Charlotte asked, eyes going wide. "Kira is are so going to hate that she missed this."

"Skylar always did say that some of their words had different meanings than they did on Earth." I commented to Noah. He chuckled.

"So, what do these little guys have to do with the game?" He questioned as two more joined us. Charlotte dropped to her knees, holding a finger out to the creatures to sniff.

"Oh, you have to avoid being hit by them, or you'll lose a point. Normally, there'd be a lot more, but this'll do." Emmanuel replied.

"Hit by them? These little guys won't-oh!" Charlotte yelped, jumping back as the dragon-squirrel opened its mouth and a small stream of fire burst from its scaly lips. "It breathes fire?!"

"Kira is really going to hate that she missed this." Noah commented.

"So you guys get how to play?" Elijah questioned.

"Uh...we have to get this," I gestured at the boulder, "in there," I nodded at a tiny area between two larger, outcropping rocks, "and avoid getting burnt by the 'dragons' or the lava spouts."

"Basically. Alternatively, if we get the ball in your score area," Emmanuel gestured at our 'net', which was just a small area between a rock and Noah's sweater. "We get a point. First team to three points wins."

"Seems simple enough?" Noah replied, not seeming all too certain about that. I shrugged.

"Yeah." I replied. It couldn't be all that hard, right?

**Xxx**

It turned out to be much harder than we'd anticipated. While the game itself was simple enough to understand, these kids were insanely good at it.

"Hey!" Charlotte protested as Emmanuel literally soared over her head, landing right in front of the boulder that she'd been chasing. The Calderan boy just sent her a smirk before kicking it over to Elijah. Noah lunged in between them, using his superspeed to try to get the boulder back in our possession, but stumbled when one of the dragon-squirrels darted out towards the boulder. If he hadn't stopped short, he would have kicked the tiny thing hard enough to punt it into the air. Unfortunately, his hesitation was enough to allow Elijah to take the ball.

I'd volunteered to play the position of goalie, and thus was the only thing standing between Elijah and the boulder. I raced forward, intending to block his view of the goal area, but suddenly, something heavy slammed into me at superspeed. I landed on the ground, dazed, recovering just in time to see Elijah kick the boulder into our goal area.

"You guys might want to up your game." Sonja suggested, standing over me. I sent her a glare and her gaze softened, however slightly, as she offered me a hand. "C'mon."

"Thanks." I told her, accepting it and allowing her to pull me to my feet. She rolled her eyes before walking back over to her team.

"Well, this game sucks." Noah decided sullenly.

"We're only one point behind." Charlotte chided, though she seemed a little disappointed herself.

"It's fine, guys. We'll get the next one." I assured them. "Just keep your eye on the prize, and we'll be fine."

**Xxx**

I raced ahead, keeping pace with the boulder as I kicked it towards the Calderans' goal area. Noah had sped forward to tackle Emmanuel before he could try and take the boulder away from me – taking a page out of Sonja's book, evidently. Charlotte was currently distracting Sonja by basically pinning the Calderan girl between herself and an active lava spout. It was only Elijah and I, and I wasn't about to let one of those squirrel-dragons get in my way this time.

Unfortunately, Elijah had other plans. Instead of coming forward to try and block my view of the goal area, like I had with Sonja, he'd backed up. I'd decided to go for it and raced in with the boulder, only for Elijah to disappear in front of me. I stopped short, surprised, but quickly recovered, not wanting to get distracted from my shot. However, before I could take the shot, the boulder moved in front of me, rolling to my left. "Hey!" I called, charging after the boulder. I hit something – or rather, someone – I couldn't see and managed to knock Elijah off balance there, but he'd already gotten the boulder away from his team's goal area. Sonja, having gotten away from Charlotte, raced after the boulder, stealing the boulder away while I was still occupied with the now visible Elijah.

"Not so fast!" Noah sped forward, abandoning his job of guarding Emmanuel in order to try and take the ball away from Sonja. She smirked and sped past him, managing to keep the boulder rolling at the speed she was running, towards the net. Noah went to follow, as did Charlotte, but Emmanuel got to them first. The Calderan boy slammed into Charlotte from behind, pushing her forward and right into Noah's path. The speedster hit her full of, the two of them tumbling to the ground almost comically.

"Are you okay?" I demanded, racing over to them. In the background, I could hear Elijah and Sonja congratulating Emmanuel excitedly as he scored behind us. Charlotte and Noah groaned as they slowly untangled themselves from each other, clearly feeling that hit.

"Okay, it's on." Noah growled, gritting his teeth as he pushed himself to his feet.

**Xxx**

Apparently, a frustrated Noah was an athletic Noah; the speedster raced ahead of us, a fiercely determined look on his face as he charged after the boulder. He sped forward faster than I could see, his body becoming a blur in front of us, but apparently not too fast for the Calderans. Sonja sped forward, blurring towards Noah at the speed of light. I couldn't quite see what happened, but suddenly, both were on the ground, Sonja on top of Noah, and the boulder rolling off towards the Calderans' score zone.

Charlotte and I both chased after it, the younger girl taking the lead. Elijah was nowhere to be seen, which was concerning on its own, while Emmanuel was standing in front of the score zone, not about to let us get a point. Charlotte glanced back at me, then nodded her head at the boy. I nodded back, having come to the same idea at the same time.

"Hey Emmanuel!" Charlotte shouted, as if his attention wasn't already on her. She abandoned the boulder altogether, instead leaping at Emmanuel. He hadn't been expecting that kind of aggression from the bionic human, and so was too stunned to try and stop her from tackling him to the ground. As she took him down, I ran after the abandoned boulder. Before any of the others could get to me, I took aim and kicked the boulder towards the score zone as hard as I could. The boulder rolled straight towards the score zone...

Then, it stopped, right before it could cross into the zone and score us a point.

Elijah reappeared, standing with one foot on top of the boulder. "That was a good try." He admitted. "But not good enough."

"I will tackle you." I threatened. He chuckled, then quickly kicked the boulder past me, just far enough out of my reach. I spun around, intent on running after it, but it was already in Sonja's possession.

"Noah!" I called, beginning to sprint after the Calderan girl. Noah sped after Sonja, but the girl stopped short, the bionic speedster going right past her. She passed the boulder to Emmanuel, who'd somehow gotten away from Charlotte. Instead of helping him out, Sonja turned around and sped at me. She slammed into me before I could get out of the way, and the two of us hit the ground roughly.

"Not so fast." Sonja teased, making no effort to get off of me. I rolled my eyes and worked my knee under her stomach before kicking her off of me.

It was too late though; by time I was standing, Emmanuel had passed the boulder to Elijah, and the green-shirted boy kicked the boulder into our score zone. Charlotte, who'd been running towards the boulder with all her might, made a valiant effort to try and stop it, leaping into the air, but only succeeded in hitting the ground and eating dirt, almost a foot away from the score zone.

"Yes!" Emmanuel shouted. I looked over to the left to find him and Noah sitting in the dirt, my nephew's face covered in dirt.

"Ugh!" Noah groaned, flopping back down to the ground.

"You've got to be kidding me." I muttered, rubbing my temples. That was 3 - 0. We'd lost, miserably so.

"That was embarrassing." Charlotte complained.

"It wasn't that bad." Elijah walked over to her, offering her a hand up. "I had fun."

"I'm glad someone did." Noah grumbled, walking over to me. He turned to me. "What do we do now? We can't get to Venusia without that piece."

"Wait, you're going to Venusia?" Emmanuel questioned, suddenly suspicious. He looked at his friends before turning back to us, narrowing his eyes. "What kind of mission do you have there?"

I glanced at Charlotte and Noah. "My parents are there. They were kidnapped on a peace-keeping mission." Noah explained. "Along with Dani and Kaz Broadman, Chase Davenport, Oliver Short, and Skylar Storm."

"Wait, your parents are part of the Elite Force?" Elijah asked, surprised. "Didn't they stop the Resistance when they tried to take over Caldera?"

I frowned, unsure of what they were referencing, but Charlotte nodded eagerly. "You mean the one Scarlet Sandler was a part of? Yeah, they did, along with a group of robot girls." She agreed before turning to us. "After the whole Marcus thing, I made Papa and Calla tell me all their stories; I wasn't going to get caught kissing another android."

"You kissed a robot?" Elijah grinned. Charlotte nodded.

"I wouldn't recommend." She replied, though she smiled back at the boy. He turned to Sonja.

"C'mon, Sonja. They're trying to save _Skylar Storm_." He insisted. She sighed.

"Alright." She agreed before speeding away. She reappeared a moment later, holding a tiny chip between her fingers. To my surprise, she offered it to me. "It was a good game."

"Thank you." I told her, then the others. "Thank you."

"We should go." Emmanuel commented to his friends. "If we want to get home before it gets dark."

"Alright." Sonja nodded. She nodded at us. "Good luck."

"Be careful out there. I suspect things are a lot more dangerous there than they are here." Elijah advised. I glanced back at one of the lava spouts, where two of the dragon-squirrels were fighting over a small, black rock.

"I hope you're wrong but thank you." I told them again. Elijah offered us one last smile.

"Come back when you're done, and we'll give you a rematch." He smiled one last time at us before jogging after his friends.

"Alright." I turned back to Noah and Charlotte. "Let's go save the Elite Force."

**Ben's POV**

When we got back to the ship, it was completely empty, the others yet to return and Felix having left us a note to let us know he'd been called in for a half-shift at the hospital and would be back when it's done.

Sera had left as well, wanting to grab some extra supplies from her parents' place before we left for the rest of the trip. I'd almost offered to go with her, but she had insisted that she wanted to go alone.

"Sera back yet?" I looked up from my tablet as Emily walked back into the kitchen. She was wearing the sweater again, her hands and cheek black with soot or oil from working on the engine.

"Nah, I think she's taking her time. She's homesick, I think." I commented. Emily nodded, walking past me to the sink to clean up.

"Hopefully seeing her parents again will help. It must suck coming back here and not being able to stay or see anyone you care about." She commented. I hummed. "Though…Noah said she doesn't' have many friends around here."

"Well, she's probably going to come back to Earth when this is all over. I don't see Oliver and Skylar wanting her to come back here when the peace treaty's been taken off the table." I commented. "You might get rid of Noah and the twins, but I think you're stuck with her for a while."

"That's alright. I like having her around." She admitted. "Though I could do without the snoring."

I chuckled. "I know, Naomi and I can hear it from our room." I admitted. She cracked a smile as she finished washing her hands. "I was serious about not giving up our room, by the way. Geminus is going to kill me when we get back, so I'm sleeping in the good bed."

Emily turned around, an apologetic look on her face. "I'm sorry you had to trade your ID coin for me. I hope you don't get in trouble because of it." She apologized. I shook my head.

"Nah, everyone loses theirs all the time." I assured her. "But I did help six teenagers sneak off to space on a dangerous mission, so I'm pretty sure she's going to kill me either way."

"You could tell her we kidnapped you." Emily suggested, trying to be helpful. I shook my head again. "Why not? She can't be mad if you didn't have a choice."

"I, a proven superhero with nearly six years of field work under my belt, was kidnapped by a bunch of teenagers with about six months' worth of training. Yes, she'll definitely believe that." I commented sarcastically. "I pretty much accepted my fate the moment we left Earth's atmosphere."

"I'm sorry." Emily apologized again, taking a seat across from me. "We didn't really think about whether or not you'd get in trouble. We just…actually, it was my plan. _I_ just thought that we'd be better off with the whole team there than just us. We are six teenagers with about six months' worth of training, after all." She explained. "But we should have asked a little better and not made you go. Especially since it might be dangerous."

"It wasn't very well thought out." I acknowledged. She nodded, fiddling with the sleeves of the sweater. I sighed. "That being said, I do think it was smart of you to take Naomi and I with you. And as annoyed as I am to have been kidnapped," I emphasized the word, and she smiled apologetically at me, "I'd rather be here to try and keep you all alive than be on Earth and hear that this all went tragically wrong and we lost all of you."

"We would be screwed without you guys." Emily admitted. "I'm still sorry."

"I forgive you." I assured her. She smiled. "But you so owe me, kid."

"Why does Emily owe you?" Kameron asked, walking into the room. I stared at him. "What?"

Emily turned around to see Kameron, and her eyes went wide. "Oh, wow." She commented. "What happened to you?"

"Oh, this?" Kameron looked down at himself. He was covered head to toe in dark green slime, ash, and what looked like tiny black scales. "Mrs. Sariah, the lady you sent us to do chores with, had me milk her dragons for her."

"You had to milk dragons?" Emily repeated, staring at him. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "What does their even milk taste like?"

"Believe it or not, acorns." The boy replied cheerfully. He turned and reached into his bag before pulling out a small wheel device. "This is the thing you wanted, right?"

"Uh, yeah." Emily took it with two fingers only, nose still wrinkled in disgust. "Thank you."

"No problem." Kameron replied. I cleared my throat.

"Uh, you can go shower, if you want." I suggested. The smell coming off of him reminded me of rotten fish, and that might have been an understatement, and possible and insult to rotten fish.

"I let Kira go first." He told us before walking past us to the sink. He smirked at us over his shoulder. "She had to clean the dragons' pens."

**Ben's POV**

"Emily!" I called, stepping into the left engine room from the cargo bay. It was a dimly lit room, mostly taken up by the giant plasma engine with very little room to maneuver. In response to my call, something metal clanged a couple of times, drawing me towards the back of the room. I found Emily perched on top of the engine, bent over two open panels with a look of concentration on her face. "Here." I said, offering her a bottle of water. "How's it going?"

"Almost done." Emily accepted the bottle gratefully. "I already finished on the right engine, should be done here soon." She looked up at me with a smile. "I'll be done in a few minutes. We should be off planet within the hour."

"Alright. We're all outside saying goodbye to Felix when you'e done." I told her. She gave me a thumbs up before tucking the bottle under her arm and continuing to work. I turned around and started to head outside. Charlotte and Kameron were in the cargo bay, sitting on top of two crates while chatting.

"So, I asked Felix to look around and he managed to find one of these." Charlotte was saying, holding up a pair of small, faded gold wristbands with black beads on either end of them. "Seasickness bracelets. Thought it might help with the trip."

"Yes." Kameron's face broke out into a grateful and relieved smile. "You are amazing, Charlotte. Thank you."

"Don't mention it." She replied, smiling back at him. "I just didn't want you hogging the bathroom the entire trip."

I chuckled as I left them to their conversation, heading out of the ship. Felix, Sera, Naomi, Kira, and Noah were all standing around the front of the ship, gathered around Kira for some reason.

"Please?" Kira was begging. There was something in her arms, but I couldn't quite see past Noah.

"No, Kira." Naomi said with tempered patience.

"No, what?" I asked, pushing through. I sighed when I saw the black, scaly squirrel in Kira's arms. A few of them had followed Naomi, Noah, and Charlotte back to the ship, and the pyrokinetic had been attached to them ever since.

"You can't keep the dragon, Kira." I told her sternly. She pouted. "I'm sorry Kira, but we can't bring a dragon on the ship."

"I'll feed it." Kira promised. Sera made a face.

"Yeah, those things eat more than Ben, Kameron, Charlotte, and Noah combined." She pointed out. Kira sighed. "Why don't you ask your parents on your way back? They let Kameron have a tarantula - they might say yes to a dragon, or maybe even a dorenbosch."

"What is a dorenbosch?" Kameron asked, confused, as he and Charlotte came out to join us. Sera considered the question for a moment before answering.

"Have you ever met your parents weird friend named Gus?" She asked. The twins nodded slowly. "Like him, but with more hair."

"What?" Noah asked, confused. Sera shrugged. "No, I actually need an explanation for that."

"No time." Emily's voice came from the ship. She was leaning against the cargo bay doors, arms crossed and a smile on her face. "Who's ready to go to Venusia?"


	4. Fly Away

**Kameron's POV**

"So, I'm supposed to guess what the card says I am?" Sera asked skeptically, hand hovering above the pile.

"Yes." Noah nodded. She frowned.

"But there are hundreds of words in the English dictionary. That could take forever." She protested. I chuckled.

"Well, you're allowed to ask questions to help you figure it out." I explained. She nodded.

"Oh, that makes sense." She said. She took a card from the pile and raised it to her forehead. "Okay, what am I?"

Noah and I exchanged looks. "You're not allowed to ask that." Noah explained as Naomi walked into the room.

"But you just said-" Sera cut herself off, frustrated. "Naomi, they're messing with me!"

"You can ask any question but that one." Naomi explained, smiling as she walked over. "You guys see Ben? Kira just told me he was looking for me."

"He's down in the cargo bay. Whatever it was, it sounded important." I told her. She nodded.

"Alright, thanks." She smiled at us before ascending down the ladder towards the cargo bay. Sera sighed.

"Why can't we go back to Monopoly?" She asked. I groaned.

"Because we've been playing it for two days and if I have to play it again, I'm going to lock myself in that bathroom again." I threatened. It had been two days since we'd left Caldera, and we were still stuck inside the Davenship. We were hurtling towards Venusia at breakneck speeds, but the trip was still going to take a few days. We'd all done our best to occupy ourselves, but everyone was anxious to arrive. Taking turns piloting the ship - it was Charlotte's shift currently - and assigning a chore wheel had helped to distract everyone, but now we were all just...bored. Hence, the board games.

"C'mon now," Noah encouraged, ask a different question."

"Okay...am I big?" Sera questioned. I shook my head.

"No." I replied. She nodded thoughtfully.

"Am I alive?" She questioned. Noah shook his head. "Am I food?"

"Yes." I confirmed. She frowned.

"Am I an Earth food?" She clarified. When Noah nodded, she scowled and tossed the card down. "This is a dumb game. I don't know enough Earth foods."

"I take it they don't have _Headbanz_ on Caldera?" Noah asked, chuckling a little at her frustration.

"No, they don't." Sera confirmed. "We have better games, like Kulognia or Calderan checkers."

"I've played Kulognia, and I've decided I don't want to learn any more Calderan games. They're violent." Noah declared. Seraphina rolled her eyes.

"You just need to have a spine for them." She assured him. "Their games are some of my favorite parts about home."

"You're really going to miss that place, aren't you?" Noah asked gently. Sera nodded.

"Earth is nice, and I'm going to miss it a lot too, but..." she trailed off, trying to figure out how to phrase her thoughts, "I am glad that my parents sent me to Earth, because I learned a lot and I gained a lot of good friends-"

"Aw." I interjected teasingly. She rolled her eyes and continued.

"I do wish I hadn't had to give up my home to do so." She finished. Noah nodded thoughtfully.

"At least you'll get to see it when this is all over." He offered. She shrugged.

"Provided we somehow end the war, which we haven't figured out how to do yet." She pointed out. I frowned.

"Won't Oliver and Skylar take you home once they're back, regardless? Or do you think they'll just have you stay on Earth?" I asked curiously.

"They were already sending me to Earth, actually." Sera revealed. Noah and I both looked at her in surprise. "I overheard them talking before I left. They don't know I know."

"You never told them?" Noah asked gently. She shrugged, ducking her head a little.

"I was kinda hoping they were just talking." She admitted slowly. Noah gave her a sympathetic smile.

"Well, maybe they won't send you back right away. I'm sure they missed you." He offered. She nodded, then cleared her throat.

"Uh, could someone else go?" She asked, gesturing at the cards. I nodded and grabbed a card, pressing it against my forehead.

"Am I allowed to ask 'what am I'?" I questioned, much to Noah's exasperation and Sera's amusement.

**Naomi's POV**

"Hey, Ben, the twins said you were looking for me?" I asked, climbing down the ladder. When I reached the bottom, I turned to ask him what was going on, but stopped short. "Ben?"

He turned around and grinned at me. Behind him, sitting on top of the largest of the crates in the cargo bay, were two plates filled with what looked like mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and steak, along with two beers. "You did say that a picnic in the cargo bay would be okay with you, so long as it was with me." He pointed out with a smirk. "And it is Valentine's day on Earth, so..."

"Well, I did specify space sludge, but I suppose this will do." I smiled back at him before walking over to the crates. I sat down on one of the smaller crates, in front of one of the plates. "This is lovely Ben, thank you."

"I thought we deserved at least one night for us." He explained, sitting down across from me. He took one of the glass bottles. "Don't tell the kids about these, by the way. The drink synthesizer doesn't make alcohol, and they don't know about the stash."

"I didn't know about the stash." I pointed out. He shrugged.

"Well, it was supposed to be seven adults, most of which with powers, trapped on a ship for 4 months with nothing to do. I thought it might liven things up a little." He admitted with a smirk. I chuckled.

"I'm not complaining." I commented. He laughed back. "Happy Valentine's Day, Ben."

"Happy Valentine's Day, Naomi." He told me, leaning forward to kiss me.

**Kira's POV**

I balanced a couple of water bottles and a few bags of dried apple chips on one arm before knocking on Emily's door with the other hand.

"Hey, Em!" I called cheerfully. She didn't respond, but her light was on, so I knew she was inside. I slid open the door with my spare hand. "Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to play cards or watch a movie or something - oh." Emily scrambled to turn off her Davenwatch's screen, quickly ripping a pair of headphones out of her head.

"Kira!" She snapped. I stopped.

"Sorry, I just wanted to see...was that Darius on your screen?" I asked, certain I'd seen her face before Emily had turned off her screen.

"Get out." Emily insisted, pointing at the door. I raised my eyebrows at her bad mood, and placed the food and drinks down on the desk next to the room's empty bunk.

"Don't be cranky. What were you looking at?" I pushed. She scowled, crossing her arms. "Emily."

"It was just some old photos, okay?" She raised her wrist and the Davenwatch activated, a photo of Emily and Darius at some park, both of them dressed up. "Can you leave now?"

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked gently. She scowled again and I raised my hands. "Alright. I was just trying to be nice, cranky pants. You've been up here all morning, I thought someone should bring you some food."

I went to leave, but as expected, Emily crumpled under the minor guilt trip. "It's Valentine's day!" She called after me, stopping me before I could leave. I turned to see an apologetic look on her face. "I'm sorry I'm crankier than usual. I just..."

"You miss him?" I guessed. She nodded.

"It's stupid. I should be over him." She muttered, dropping onto her bunk. I shrugged and sat down next to her.

"It's only been...what, five, six weeks? And it wasn't exactly the most conventional break up. You get to be upset as much as you need." I told her, bumping my shoulder with hers. She gave me a grateful smile. "Seriously, do you want to talk about it? It hasn't exactly been your best year."

"It's only February." Emily muttered. I nodded.

"I know. But between Darius, and Ava, and your dad..." I trailed off. She shook her head.

"Screw Ava. I have better friends than her. And we're going to get my dad back." Emily insisted stubbornly. She looked at me. "Your mom and dad too. I promise."

"I know. But everyone's kinda worried about you anyway." I told her. She rolled her eyes. "You don't believe me? We can take a poll. It'll probably end up being an intervention if we do though."

"No, no. I get it. I'm okay though, really. I just need...time, I guess." She mumbled. I nodded thoughtfully.

"And you and Calla?" I asked. She sighed, sounding annoyed again. "You were kinda being hard on her. Do you guys just need time?"

"I need a little more than just time there." She grumbled. I sighed.

"Emily." I began, but she shook her head.

"No, I know everyone thinks I'm being too hard on her and I'm not being fair, but it's her fault that Darius is gone." She argued.

"It was his choice to leave, Emmy." I pointed out.

"And he wouldn't have made that choice if he felt he had somewhere to go. And we could have offered him that, should have offered him that, but my mother couldn't get past her own prejudice long enough to see that he wasn't our enemy." She looked at me seriously. "He had nowhere to go, nowhere that was safe anyway, and she didn't care."

"She cares, Emily. She just couldn't take that chance." I tried to reassure the girl, but she shook her head again.

"What, because he was the son of a criminal? Grandson of Victor Krane?" She snorted darkly. "Leo is literally the only bionic hero who wasn't created by a super villain. There are plenty of heroes in the world with terrible parents."

"My mother included." I added half-heartedly. Emily looked at me sharply. "Oh yeah, Charlotte and I did a deep dive into our family histories. Turns out, grandma's not dead, just evil."

"...Okay." She clearly wasn't expecting that, but went with it. "And Oliver and Dani are some of the greatest heroes of their generation. And if we're really considering Victor Krane to be father of all those bionic heroes, then Darius is just as much Krane's grandchild as Charlotte is. We don't consider her an enemy. Mom's a hypocrite for not trying to help him."

"That's pushing it a little." A part of me kinda agreed with her - since learning

"Is it, though?" Emily dropped her gaze with a heavy sigh. "We don't even know if he's okay. He could be on the streets somewhere, freezing and starving for all we know."

"Or he's totally fine, holed in a nice, warm, five-star hotel somewhere eating room service." I pointed out. She gave me a look. "Okay, he's probably not doing that, but he is resourceful and as smart as you are. I know that if you were in his position, you'd figure out how to make it work for you, right?"

"I suppose..." She sighed. "I'm just scared for him, Kira. I'm probably never going to know if he turned out okay."

"Then...just picture him safe and happy. If you don't have any proof to the contrary, why can't that be true?" I suggested, putting my arm around her and forcing her into a side hug. She hummed in response and I decided to take the fact that she didn't fight the hug as a win. "As for Calla, what she did was wrong. It was a mistake on her part. But people make mistakes. Even superheroes. Even parents." I told her. I hummed, then added. "Especially parents."

Emily hummed again. After a moment, she spoke. "Are those apple chips?" She questioned, reaching across the tiny room, just managing to grab the edge of one of the bags off the desk.

"Yeah, I found them while going through the cargo storage. We have a lot of dehydrated food." I replied. "I think Calla packed them in case something went wrong with the food synthesizers or something."

"No way these were my mom's idea. Dad was the healthy one, not her." Emily pointed out. She sighed and turned to me. "So, did you come in here for a heart-to-heart, or was there another reason?"

"Oh, I was bored, didn't feel like playing _Headbanz_ with the others. And since Naomi and Ben are having a little date on the first floor, I thought I'd bug you." I replied. She smiled a little.

"You ever play chess?" She asked curiously. I shook my head and she broke out into a grin. "Oh, I'm going to kick your ass."

**Kameron's POV**

"Well? Am I a person?" Seraphina asked. Noah and I exchanged smirks. By some weird stroke of luck, the card that Sera was holding to her head read 'alien', and neither of us were sure of how to answer without misleading her.

"Not a human one?" Noah replied uncertainly, shrugging. She frowned.

"Am I a Calderan?" She asked, also confused.

"Close enough." I allowed. She turned the card around to look at it and scowled.

"Well, that's awfully vague." She complained. Noah chuckled.

"That's a fair critique." He agreed before getting up. "Well, I'm going to go check in with Charlotte. We should be getting to Venusia soon. I'll catch you guys later."

"Bye." "See ya, man." Sera and I replied. Once he was gone, Sera looked to me.

"Are we going to keep going?" She asked. I shrugged.

"Why not?" I grabbed a card and raised it to my forehead. Sera stared at it, frowning.

"...I don't know what that is." She admitted after a long moment. I frowned and turned the card around. It read 'typewriter' in large block letters.

"Neither do I." I admitted, shrugging. "New game?"

"Nah. I actually wanted to ask you about something." Sera clasped her hands together, planted her elbows on the table, and rested her chin on her hands. "When are you going to make your move on Charlotte?"

I stared at her, caught completely off guard by her question. "I...you...you can't just ask someone that!"

"I can't?" She furrowed her brow in confusion. "I don't know everything about Earthling courting traditions, but I do distinctly remember Kira asking you that question after Christmas. Or are sisters the only ones allowed to inquire?"

"No, that's...I don't even like her like that, anyway." I shook my head. Sera gave me a look.

"Okay, that is definitely a lie. Everyone knows you like her. I'm pretty sure even the adults know you have a thing for her." She told me, point blank. She didn't give me a chance to respond before continuing. "Now, you obviously waited because of the whole Matt-Marcus thing, which was a very honorable thing to do, but I it's fair to say that the cooling down period has passed."

I stared at her. "Could you please keep your voice down?" I hissed. She rolled her eyes.

"She's all the way in the main deck. She can't hear us from here unless we shout." She assured me. I sighed.

"You know, I really hate how everyone seems to know about my feelings for her." I grumbled. She shrugged.

"Be less obvious then." She advised. I gave her a look.

"You've been spending too much time with Emily." I accused. She shrugged, not disputing the accusation. "Look, I've just been waiting for the right time, okay? Right now, with our parents in trouble, us on a dangerous mission, it just doesn't feel right."

"That makes sense." Sera nodded in understanding. "But you might not want to wait too long though."

"Why?" I frowned, confused. "Who else is she going to go out with up here?"

"That's not what I mean. When we get back, don't you think your parents are going to take you and Kira back to New York?" She pointed out. "That's an awful long way from Centium City."

I leaned back in my seat. "Shit." I muttered. "I hadn't even thought about that."

"Really? That's all I've been thinking about, the fact that they're probably going to break up the team when we get back to Earth." Sera sighed. I shook my head.

"We're still going to be a team." I insisted. She shrugged. "We are, Sera."

"That's what Noah thinks too, and I know we'll try, but..." She trailed off before shrugging dejectedly again. "Distance has a way of ruining good things."

"We'll make it work." I told her, though I wasn't too certain myself. After all, the original Elite Force was a prime example of what Sera was worrying about: they used to be thick as thieves, and now, they needed a planet-saving mission to get together. They tried their best to stay close, and it wasn't like they never talked to each other, but Sera did make an excellent point. "You think I should ask her out now? Before it's too late."

"I just think you'll regret it if you don't." Seraphina told me, tone gentle. "Because I don't think this is just some silly little crush anymore."

I chuckled darkly. "It hasn't been 'just some silly little crush' in a long time." I admitted. She gave me a sympathetic smile. I cleared my throat, wanting to change the topic before someone walked in. Besides, my cousin had given me a lot to think about. "What about you? Do you have any 'silly little crushes'?"

Sera just smiled and stood up. "I'm gonna go see if we have any other games up here." She announced, starting to walk away. I scowled good naturedly at her.

"That's not fair!" I protested. She laughed.

"Fair is for humans!" She joked before slipping into her room.

**Kira's POV**

"I think I'm getting the hang of this." I said cheerfully, moving one of my pieces.

"You can't move that there. The knight can only go in L's, not diagonals." Emily corrected me.

"Oh. Right." I moved the piece back and moved another. "Your turn."

Emily looked over the pieces, then took her bishop in her hand, contemplating her move before making it. "So, you and Charlie did some family history research? You learn anything we need to know?"

"Oh, plenty. My parents told us a lot, but damn, your family has secrets." I whistled. Emily looked at me, brow furrowed. "Did you know your uncle Douglas used to work with Victor Krane?"

"I did, actually. His lab is where he and Mom gave Leo his bionics." She replied. I nodded.

"Did you know Douglas kidnapped the original bionic team? And Leo, and Calla and Jaden?" Judging by her expression, she did not. "Held them at gunpoint even."

"But we like Great Uncle Douglas." Emily protested, grabbing an apple chip from her bag. I nodded.

"I know. He sounds fun." I agreed. She chuckled.

"Okay, so one evil grandparent / great-uncle. What's up with your grandmother?" She asked. I popped a chip in my mouth.

"You heard of Mr. Terror?" I asked. Emily's eyes widened.

"No." She gasped. I nodded. "Seriously? I thought he was a 'he'. It's 'Mr' Terror."

"She took the name after the original." I explained. "But yeah, grandma's basically the supervillain world's godfather."

"Godmother." Emily corrected. She smirked. "Okay, that makes you so much cooler."

"Cooler than Nyssa?" I asked. She laughed.

"I don't know, Nyssa can do magic." She pointed out. I scowled at her and smacked her in the arm. "Okay, okay. You're cooler than Nyssa."

"Thank you." I told her, moving my knight again, this time in the right way.

"So, what about Venusia? What did you learn about it?" Emily questioned, moving one of her pawns. I glanced at the miniature chess board, considering my next move.

"Not much. There weren't many heroes from the planet, but Rodisseus and his family had ancestry there."

"As in Ava, Aaron, and Reese." Emily confirmed. I nodded. "So, they're a planet of shapeshifters?"

"No, actually. The shapeshifting gene was only passed down in a few. Less than 2% of the planet's population. Everyone has powers though - the kinds and numbers of abilities vary between the people, kinda like with Calderans. I told Naomi we won't know what to expect from them when we get there." I sighed. "As for the planet itself, we didn't have much on it aside from some info Venusian Beetles, which are deadly."

"Fun. I didn't love bugs to begin with." Emily sighed. She pressed her lips together tightly. "Hopefully, we'll find our parents and get off the planet really quickly."

"Hopefully. Though I wouldn't mind keeping one of those beetles as a pet." I replied. She rolled her eyes as I moved my rook forwards. I hummed, looking at the board. "Uh, I think I just won."

"No, you didn't...what?" Emily looked at the board, really seeing where our pieces were for the first time. "How did you...that's checkmate!"

"That means I won, right?" I asked again. She nodded, still staring at the board.

"How did you get me in checkmate? You've never played before!" She protested. She looked up at me, eyes wide, and I smiled brightly at her in response.

**Naomi's POV**

"This is good. I'm surprised the food synthesizers make such good food." Ben commented. "Calla really needs to get into the food business."

"Um, Calla should?" I questioned. "I don't think she was the one who designed this."

Ben chewed once, thinking about it, then his eyes widened. "You are definitely right about that."

"I can ask Leo who designed it when we get back, maybe see about getting one for your apartment." I offered.

"I would never eat out again." Ben told me, dead serious. I giggled a little bit as I placed my utensils on the plate.

"It was a nice meal. Thank you." I said again. I furrowed my brow. "But do you want to know what really surprises me?"

"What?" Ben leaned in, as if about to hear some great secret. I smiled and leaned in as well.

"It's been nearly an hour, and none of the kids have bothered us." I whispered. He reared back with a deep laugh. "I'm serious. I wasn't expecting to get more than five minutes of alone time this entire trip."

"Yeah, well, I may have threatened to throw every single one of them out of the airlock if even one of them bothered us." He admitted.

"Ben!" I exclaimed, even as I laughed.

"I wasn't serious...well, maybe I was." He admitted. "But hey, it worked. That's all I care about."

I smiled, then leaned back in my seat. I sighed. "What's wrong?" Ben asked immediately. I shook my head.

"Nothing. This is perfect." I assured him. "It just hit me that we're not going to get another chance for something like this until we get home. Keeping six kids out of here is one thing, but thirteen other people? It's not gonna happen."

"We'll make it work." Ben promised me, taking my hand. I smiled back at him as he brushed his thumb over my knuckles. "I do have to ask, how exactly are we going to pull this off? Because we haven't really planned on how we're going to pull this off."

"I know." I agreed, letting out a slow breath. Ben looked at me, patiently.

"Is there a plan?" He asked after a long moment. I nodded.

"The plan is...to land, find the team, break them out, get back to the ship, and get off the planet, ideally without the Venusians being the wiser." I decided. He looked at me. "We can work out the specifics once we land, but that's all I've got for now. Unless you've got something better?"

"No, no." He raised both his hands in surrender. "You're the boss, you make the plans. I'm just worried."

"It's not a great plan." I admitted. He didn't respond to that, though I could tell he agreed. "But we won't know what we're dealing with until we're actually standing on the planet. I'd like to at least have a plan we can deviate from, than go there without a plan at all."

"That's fair. Besides, since when does anything go according to plan?" He asked. I nodded.

"Exactly." I agreed. He nodded and took a sip of his beer. "Besides, saving the team isn't actually what I'm most worried about."

"Then what is?" Ben asked, confused. I smirked.

"Explaining to them why they're being rescued by a bunch of teenagers instead of a trained task force." I reminded him. He rolled his eyes. "They're not going to be thrilled with that."

"No, they are not." Ben agreed, seeming almost amused. I cocked my head to the side. "But don't worry about explaining it to them."

"Are you going to do it?" I questioned. He shook his head.

"The kids are." He decided. I opened my mouth to object - he seemed to get some sort of enjoyment from the idea of it - but he cut me off, shaking his head. "No, no, Naomi. Those kids orchestrated all of this, they're on their own for the explanation to their parents. I'm putting my foot down on this."

I gave him a look. "You're not still mad about the whole kidnapping thing, are you?" I asked, exasperated. I understood why he'd been upset - we'd literally been kidnapped, after all - but the kids had meant well and after Ben had told me that Emily had taken responsibility for it and apologized, I'd assumed that would be the end of it.

To my relief, Ben shook his head. "No, I'm not mad anymore." He assured me. "But that does not mean I'm letting them get out of dealing with the consequences for their actions. They made their beds, they can lie in them."

I chuckled. "If you say so." I agreed. He did have a point. I glanced at my drink, then smiled. "Alright, since we're probably not going to get this kind of peace and quiet until we get back to Earth, I propose a toast." I announced, raising my bottle.

"Alright." Ben raised his beer alongside mine.

"To taking advantage of our alone time while we can." I declared. He chuckled.

"Cheers." He agreed, clinking his drink against mine before taking a long drink. When he was done, he fixed with a confident smirk. "So, speaking of 'taking advantage of our alone time', what do you say we-"

 _"Hey everyone?"_ Noah's voice came over the comm. _"I need everyone on the main deck. We've arrived."_

"You've got to be kidding me." Ben muttered. I laughed at his response.

"Next time." I promised him, leaning in to kiss him before breaking away. I grabbed his hand. "C'mon. Venusia awaits."

**Kameron's POV**

"Whoa." Naomi exclaimed as she and Ben joined the rest of us on the main deck. I had to agree; the view of the large, pale purple planet before us was breathtaking. Caldera had been cool, sure, but in truth it didn't look too much different than images of Mars. But Venusia was so different, so...alien.

"Uh, what are we going to do about that?" Kira questioned, gesturing at the planet. It took a moment, but then I saw what she was talking about - a thin, translucent, bluish barrier surrounding the planet and coming up fast.

"You in range? It's getting pretty close." Charlotte commented, glancing at Emily from her pilot's seat. Emily nodded and raised one hand towards the planet, the other resting on the back of Charlotte's chair.

"What is she doing?" Sera whispered.

"I'm trying to deactivate one of the satellites projecting the force field." Emily ground out between clenched teeth, forehead wrinkled in concentration. However, as we got closer and closer to the barrier, it didn't move.

"You don't have much experience with non-Earth tech, Em. Are you sure-" "Shut up, Noah!" Emily snapped, cutting her cousin off mid-sentence. She was clearly trying her hardest to get this to work, but it was true that she didn't have the same talent with alien tech that she did earth tech.

"Focus, Emily." Ben advised.

"When you tell me to focus, it makes it harder to focus!" Emily snapped at him. Ben opened his mouth to argue, but Naomi grabbed his hand and silently shook her head at him. Emily, meanwhile, let out a frustrated sigh and raised her left hand from Charlotte's chair to her own head, two fingers pressed against her temple as if to help her concentrate.

I was about to suggest we stop before we hit the barrier - it was no more than a dozen feet in front of us by now, when Emily suddenly laughed in delight. We all looked just in time to see a large, triangular section of the planet's force field flicker and disappear. "Punch it, Char!" Emily insisted, keeping her eyes shut as she concentrated.

Charlotte did as she was told, pushing the ship forward faster. As soon as we were past it, safely inside the barrier, Emily dropped her hands with a relieved sigh. "Thank God that worked."

"Don't look too relieved." Naomi advised as Charlotte began piloting the ship down towards the planet's surface. "Getting here was the easy part. Trust me, this mission has only just begun."


	5. Venusia

**Noah's POV**

I looked out the window, watching as Charlotte carefully landed the Davenship in a small clearing amongst the massive trees. The landscape looked nothing like I'd imagined. The trees were about almost 12 feet wide, their leaves dozens of feet above the dirt-covered ground. Every bit of foliage I could see - the leaves on the trees, the grass on the ground, the weird moss thing on the bark - were colored cool and dark shades of purple. And while there didn't appear to be a single living creature out there, I could almost sense that we were being watched.

"This is so cool." Kira whistled, looking at the planet with wide, amazed eyes. She ducked down low, and gasped. "Wait, are there two suns?"

I got closer to the ground, and sure enough, there was a second sun in the sky, hidden by the top of the ship at eye-level. "So, what? Did we land on Tatooine instead?"

"Not exactly, and those aren't suns - they're stars." Emily pointed out. I glanced at Ben and Naomi, then back at Emily.

"Isn't the sun a star though?" I asked, confused. I hadn't been the best science student in high school, but that was pretty common knowledge. Emily laughed at my question, but not unkindly.

"Well, yes. These are just smaller and less powerful than our sun." She explained. She looked at our aunt. "I did some research on Venusia before we left. We should actually probably talk about the planet before we go out there. Caldera was known territory. Venusia, not so much."

"It's just a planet." Kameron pointed out. Emily nodded.

"A planet that's very, very different than ours." She pointed out, leaning on the back of one of the chairs. She sighed. "Alright, first thing – even though the planet's got two sources of warmth, they don't give off as much heat as the sun and the planet is still pretty cold. It's about 5 degrees Celsius during the day. It'll probably drop at night too, so bring warm clothes and equipment."

"Hold on." Kameron stopped her, rushing out of the room. He came back a moment later with a notebook he'd found in the study. He quickly wrote down what she'd said, then nodded for her to continue. "So we don't forget."

"Speaking of nights, the planet has a 28-hour day cycle compared to Earth's 24-hour one. Nights are about 10 hours, days about 18."

"Weird, but manageable." Naomi nodded.

"Animals, insects, and plants: I don't have that much on the living things on the planet, but from what I can tell, at least some of it is deadly to humans. There's a couple of species of bugs that are poisonous, and there are warnings about eating the plants in the old Mighty Med records, so we should be careful. I don't think any of it is poisonous to touch, but definitely don't eat anything out there." She looked round at us.

"Charlotte, that means you." I commented. She scowled at me.

"Let it go." She groaned. Kira raised an eyebrow at that.

"Story time?" She asked. Emily cracked a smile.

"She ate a cookie off the sidewalk once." She explained.

"When I was six." Charlotte added. "Six! It's been nearly 11 years; let it go." She insisted. Ben cleared his throat.

"Guys." He cautioned. "Please."

"Sorry." Charlotte and I grumbled at the same time.

"What about the water?" Sera asked, looking at Emily. "Is it safe to drink?"

"Maybe? I can't be sure until I test some. But we have water purifying tablets that we can use." Emily responded.

"We should bring extra water, just in case." Naomi advised. Ben nodded.

"Anything else that you came across in your research that you haven't already shared?" He asked Emily. She shook her head. "Alright, so what we can take from that is that we should be careful. We don't know much about the planet or its people and we all need to act accordingly, understood?"

"Understood." We all answered him in unison.

"Alright, good. Naomi?" Ben glanced at her and she stepped forward.

"Look, the objective here is to find the Elite Force, and get them out of here safely. We don't know if any of them are hurt, so the goal is to not have to fight our way out." She began, walking past Emily. She reached over Charlotte and hit a button near the control console. A hologram shone out of the back of the captain's chair, revealing a map of Venusia. The planet looked to be mostly made of jungle, with the occasional clearing, city, or massive river. A yellow spot glowed in the northern hemisphere of the planet. "That's where we are. This," Naomi pointed at another spot and it began to glow red, "is where we're headed."

"That's Caelus City, Venusia's capital city." Seraphina realized. She looked at Naomi. "That's where the peace treaty meeting was supposed to take place."

"Which is why we're going to start our search there." Naomi declared. "With any luck, they're somewhere in that city."

"When are we ever lucky?" Emily sighed.

"This time, maybe." Ben offered. He looked at us. "Alright, suit up everyone."

**Xxx**

"How on Earth did I not notice when you stole my uniform?" I heard Ben demand as I passed by the ladder to the cargo bay on my way to the bedroom. I chuckled - the day we'd left, I'd stored our uniforms and mission equipment in a few of the larger crates in the cargo bay, including Ben and Naomi's.

"Ask for your key back next time someone moves out of our place!" I called before knocking on Sera's door and a moment later, it slid open, the Calderan girl clasping the last of the blue straps on her boots. "Hey."

"Hey." She smiled at me, standing up while testing out the boots. "I have to say, I missed this uniform."

"Me too. Mine, I mean." I replied. If this was our last mission, I was glad to be wearing it (I kinda figured that the parents would try and make us disband our team when we got back, but I also figured we'd all try and do it behind their backs anyway, so odds were fifty-fifty as to whether or not I'd be wearing it again). "Oh, I brought you something."

I held up the light blue ball cap and offered it to her. "Thanks?" She took it, though she looked a little confused. "I don't think they have baseball diamonds here though."

"We're trespassing on another planet. If we get caught, the best case scenario is that they think we're lost tourists or something. Or, if the Venusians look even something like us, they think we're just from another village. But you..."

"Look Calderan." She sighed. She shook her head. "I hadn't thought about that."

"Yeah, I figured this might hide your face enough that if they do catch us." I explained. "Though, still kinda hoping that they don't catch us at all."

"Still, it's smart to be prepared." She brushed her hair away from her face and put the cap on her head before smiling at me. "How do I look?"

I smiled back. "Good. Actually, I think..." I reached up to gently tug the light blue streak in her hair out a little from where it was hidden behind the rest of her hair. "Yeah, it's the same color as your streak."

"Cool." She grinned.

"We're leaving!" Emily called, passing me with a bag over her shoulder. "Hurry up, or you'll be on kitchen cleaning duty when we get back."

"You don't get to make those decisions!" Sera called after her. She stepped out of her room and closed the door behind her. "Let's go save our parents."

**Emily's POV**

I grimaced as I carefully stepped over a fallen log, using my flashlight to make sure there were no bugs or insects I could be stepping on. I wasn't the biggest fan of the outdoors, especially given how my last camping trip had gone, but being on a different planet made it so much weirder. Sure, walking through a purple forest was an image I'd never forget, but we didn't know what was on this planet, and stepping on something living could prove to be more deadly than gross.

Still, that wasn't about to stop us. The journey to Caelus City was almost a six hour trek - landing that far away from civilization was the only way we could be certain that we wouldn't be seen - so, as cautious as we were, we pushed on. If we kept up the current pace, we'd make it to the city just after midnight here, and then, assuming that the Venusias weren't a nocturnal race, we'd be able to explore and gather information in a mostly quiet city. There were a lot of assumptions to that plan, but it was the best we had, and we needed it to work if we were going to find Dad and the others.

We walked in silence for the longest time, all of us taking the mission too seriously to bother with small talk or idle chit chat. For the first hour of our journey, the only sounds we could hear were the soft buzz of animals in the jungle, rustling leaves, and our own footsteps. Then, Kira finally broke, unable to handle the quiet for much longer.

"So, do you think Mom, Dad, and the others are going to be mad at us for stealing the Davenship?" She was only speaking to Kameron, but the rest of us couldn't help but join in.

"I don't think your parents are going to be mad. They might even be proud." Sera laughed a little. "My dad said that they would take Calla's technology so often that she started writing warning labels specifically for them."

"She used to do that for Uncle Adam too." Charlotte chimed in with a chuckle. "Never stopped him."

"I doubt it stopped Kaz or Dani either." Ben agreed, shaking his head with a smile.

"Wait, is that why Calla locked up all the fun stuff with a secret code that only she knows?" Kameron asked.

"I think you mean the 'dangerous stuff'." I corrected, unable to help myself from grinning. He shrugged.

"It's the same difference." He insisted. "I bet she told Naomi the code."

"It's 0815." I mentioned before Naomi could answer. She gave me a look. "If she didn't want me to figure it out, she should have used a lock and key instead of technology."

"She should be putting warnings specifically for Emily, Kameron, and Charlotte." Noah joked. Naomi nodded.

"Definitely. Big ones, brightly colored, so they couldn't pretend to miss it." She agreed. Charlotte laughed at that.

"As if that would stop us." She declared, bounding forward a few steps to hop up onto a boulder.

"I mean, clearly is hasn't." I agreed with a grin.

It was like the tension had disappeared completely, like it was any of those other minor missions that Mom had sent us on for training. There was still a lot at stake here, but it was like things were normal again. I smiled, following after Charlotte as she joked and teased about what she'd do if she really wanted to use my mom's 'off-limits' technology.

After a couple of hours, Naomi called the team to a halt. "Let's take a break." She suggested, much to our relief. "Fifteen minutes, then head out again?"

"Good with me." Charlotte sat down on a fallen tree log with a heavy sigh. She crossed one leg over the other, massaging her foot. "My feet are killing me."

"I don't suppose we can start a fire? I don't know about you guys, but I'm freezing." Noah added. I shivered in agreement at his statement. Night might have been the best decision to get into the city unnoticed, but without either star warming the ground, it was freezing out here. Thankfully, our suits were well-insulted, built to withstand worse temperatures, but that didn't do much to protect our faces and heads, where we were losing the most heat. Once again, I was incredibly grateful that my suit came with a hood.

"Please?" Sera agreed, shoving her hands in her armpits. Most of us had gloves that protected our hands from the cold, but Sera's were fingerless, doing nothing to protect her digits from the biting temperatures. Kira's suit didn't have gloves at all, or even sleeves for that matter, but her pyrokinesis must have been keeping her toasty, because she didn't seem at all dragged down by the cold.

"We are still a few hours out. I doubt there'd be anyone this far away from the city that would see us." Ben considered. He nodded after a moment. "A small one though."

Kira nodded and raised a hand towards a small tree stump in front of us. It caught fire instantly, lighting up the tiny clearing we'd stopped in. "I can keep it going myself, but I'd rather not waste the energy if we can find leaves or branches."

"I'll do it." Ben offered. He removed his backpack and pulled out an empty, orange water bottle. "Anyone else volunteering to go get water? I think I hear a stream in that direction."

"I'll do it. I have the water-purifying tablets." I sighed. Kameron dropped his bag by Charlotte's feet.

"I'll help." He volunteer. Charlotte smiled and handed him her crimson-colored water bottle. We quickly collected the bottles and made our way towards the stream Ben had heard. It wasn't that far from the clearing, close enough for us to make out the light of the fire. We'd have no problem finding our way back.

"How do we do this?" Kameron asked as I pulled the tablet package out of my bag.

"Like this." I grabbed a light blue water bottle out of his arms - Sera's bottle - and knelt down, dipping it into the water. To my surprise, it was hot to the touch, not enough to boil or scald, but far hotter than I would have expected from the cold planet. I filled the bottle to the brim, then dropped one of the tablets into it before sealing it. "It should take about ten minutes to purify. I'll test it before we go."

"Cool." Kameron started filling up bottles, handing them to me one by one. "Hey, can I get your advice on something?"

"Do it." I replied instantly. He looked at me. "Oh, sorry. Whenever Charlotte asks for my advice, she's really just looking for someone to support her on some reckless idea. What do you need advice on?"

"It's about-what was that?" He sat up suddenly. I frowned, standing up. I scanned the area around us, but I couldn't see anything in the dark jungle.

"What was-whoa!" Kameron suddenly pulled me to the ground as a dark figure lunged out of the trees. It soared over our head, landing a few feet away from us. Kameron and I scrambled backwards, to the edge of the water, staring at it.

It was a black, four-legged creature, almost cat-like in appearance, but with a muzzle more similar to a dog's. Its hair was black with some sort of spotted pattern in it, and its tailed, forked at the end, swished around in front of us. It turned its head towards us and snarled with large, yellow teeth, its ears flattening against its head.

"Run!" I shouted, pushing myself to my feet and taking off.

"I'm with you on that one!" Kameron agreed, chasing after me with the creature hot on our trail.

**Noah's POV**

Sera was in the middle of telling us a story about how her mom accidentally created a new Calderan desert when a high-pitched scream came from the jungle. We all jumped to our feet in response, surprised.

"Was that Emily?" Ben demanded, dropping the pile of branches that he'd been carrying over to the fire. Charlotte nodded.

"It sounded like it." She agreed, stepping uncertainly towards the edge of the clearing. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning shot out of the sky and crashed into the jungle near where the scream had seemed to come from.

"That was definitely Kameron!" Kira exclaimed, rushing out into the woods before anyone could stop her.

"Kira!" I called after her, but she was gone. "She's going to get lost!"

"I'll get her." Ben muttered. He glanced back at us. "Stay here; if we separate, we're never going to find our way back."

"What about Emily and Kameron?" Charlotte demanded. Ben hesitated.

"Noah, you're coming with me. We'll find them. The rest of you, stay here." He ordered. Naomi nodded.

"If you're not back in thirty minutes, we're going after you guys." She decided. He opened his mouth up to object. "Not for discussion."

"No. If we all get lost, it's not going to help anyone." He told her. He looked around. "If we aren't back in thirty minutes, keep going to Caelus City. If we can't find each other, we'll at least know where everyone's headed."

"Fine." Naomi nodded reluctantly. "Now go, before you lose Kira."

Ben nodded, then turned to me. "C'mon. Let's find the kids."

**Emily's POV**

"Guys!" I shouted, limping back into the clearing we'd all stopped in before.

"Emily!" Charlotte exclaimed in relief, immediately pulling me in for a hug. She pulled away a second later, looking worried and confused. "Where's Kameron? What happened?"

I looked past her at Naomi and Sera. Aside from them, the camp was empty. "We got attacked by something. An animal, I don't know what kind. I've never seen anything like it before." I rambled, shaking my head. "Kameron- it-zap..."

"Easy, easy." Naomi placed her hand on my shoulder and made me look at her. "Slow down. An animal attacked you."

"Yeah. It was large, black, kinda like a panther or cheetah but with a dog face. It was big and fast and had huge teeth." I explained. She nodded.

"Then what?" She asked.

"We ran. Made it all the way over there," I turned and pointed in the direction I'd come, "but then we got stuck because there's a small cliff."

"So what did you do?" Naomi questioned.

"Kameron used his powers. He created a lightning bolt and had it zap the ground in front of us, to scare off the animal." I explained. She nodded again, motioning for me to continue. "But he aimed a little too close to us, and part of the cliff wall broke and I fell. He didn't."

"Are you hurt?" Naomi demanded instantly, looking me over. I shook my head.

"I twisted my ankle, but that's it. It wasn't that long a fall." I assured her. "But by time I got back to the top, Kameron and the animal were gone. I don't know where they went. I saw the light and came here. But I don't know where Kameron is."

"It's okay, it's okay. Ben, Noah, and Kira are out looking for Kameron now." Naomi told us. Sera sighed.

"I wish we had comms so that we could tell them that you're alright." Sera sighed. She looked at Naomi. "They're going to be looking for her, with no way to tell that she's safe."

"Ben will come back here within thirty minutes; the last thing he wants is us wandering out there." Naomi assured her.

"And besides, the comms won't work." I shook my head, still worried about Kameron. "There's some sort of weird interference from the force field. All we'd hear is static."

"We'll just stay here and wait." Naomi decided. "Kira and the boys will be back soon."

"I hope you're right." Sera sighed, taking a seat again. She straightened up immediately. "Oh no. What about the water?"

I looked at Sera in despair. "We dropped the bottles by the stream when the animal attacked." I explained.

"That was all the water we had." Charlotte looked at Naomi. She sighed and looked back at me.

"Are you sure the animal is gone? If it is, we can go get them once Ben and the others are back." She asked. I shook my head.

"I'm not sure of anything." I admitted. Sera suddenly stood up.

"Uh, I'm pretty sure it's not near the water bottles anymore." She announced. We all looked at her in confusion and saw her point past us. Turning, we found that the creature was prowling around the edge of the clearing.

"Should we run?" Charlotte asked, uncertain. Naomi shook her head.

"Not with that ankle." She nodded at me before stepping towards the fire pit, keeping her eyes on the creature. It was watching us with wide, white eyes, growling a little. "No running. Maybe it's like a bears and wolves." She suggested.

"We don't like bears either!" I hissed, my voice raising in pitch.

"If you run, they'll attack. You know, wolves are more scared of people than people are of them." Naomi pointed out. "So, if we stay calm, maybe it will go away."

The creature growled again, nearing us. It was lowering itself into a crouch, growling. "I don't think it's going away." Charlotte murmured, gripping my arm as we backed away.

"In that case," Naomi suddenly swung a large branch forward, flames coming off the end of it. She swung it at the creature and it backed away, snarling. "Go away! Get out of here!" Naomi shouted.

The creature backed up again, before lunging at Naomi. She hit it dead on with the branch, which managed to knock it down to the ground for a moment, before it quickly recovered. It went to lunge again, but this time was knocked down by a cryoblast.

"Nice job." Naomi nodded at her.

"Oh no." Charlotte gasped. At first, I thought she was talking about the creature, as it had started to slowly get back to its feet. But then, she pointed past it, and I saw another one slowly walking out from the treeline.

"Okay, now we run." Naomi grabbed my arm, propelling me forward. I tried my best to ignore the throbbing in my ankle as I ran, my friends right behind me.

We raced out of the clearing and into the woods, but without having a chance to grab our flashlights, we were running through the dark, just like Kameron and I had been before. And just like Kameron, I lost Naomi, Charlotte, and Sera in the trees.

**Kameron's POV**

"Emily!" I called, my throat hoarse from shouting for so long. I'd lost her when she went over the side of the cliff after I'd tried to get that...that animal away from us. My lightning had scared it off, but try as I might, I could not find the technopath anywhere. The cliff didn't seem too deep, but it was too dark to see to be sure. I couldn't know for sure that she wasn't lying at the bottom of it, injured or worse. I couldn't even find a safe way down the cliff, no matter how far along the edge I searched. "Emily!"

The sound of movement, rustling of leaves, and heavy, fast-moving footsteps caused me to turn just in time to see a dark figure coming straight for me. Whoever it was didn't stop, didn't even have a chance to once they'd seen me, and full-on tackled me. We both fell back, over the edge of the cliff. For a brief few seconds, the wind rushed past my ears, then we hit the ground, hard.

I coughed harshly as the breath fled my lungs, the fall basically taking everything out of me. "Oh my god." The girl above me murmured, her voice strained a little in pain. "What just happened?"

"We..." I stopped as she climbed off of me, but I made no movement to get up. "We fell...of a cliff...Char."

"Kameron? Oh my god, I'm so sorry." Charlotte apologized immediately. She dropped to her knees next to me. "Are you hurt? Is it bad?"

"No, I..." I grimaced as I slowly pushed myself into a sitting position. "I mean, you killed me right there, but nothing's broken.

"I'm sorry." She apologized again. She paused, looking up. "I think we got away from them though."

"Got away from who?" I demanded.

"More of those creatures that attacked you and Emily." She explained.

"You found her? Is she okay?" I demanded, relieved to find out that she hadn't been killed by the fall. It hadn't felt like that bad a drop there, but landing at the wrong angle could have seriously injured or killed her.

"She twisted her ankle. Aside from that, she's fine." Charlotte assured me. She hesitated. "But I lost her, Sera, and Naomi in the woods."

"What about Kira and the others?" I asked, getting up. She shook her head.

"They went looking for you. We haven't seen them since." She explained. I nodded.

"We need to find them." I told her.

"We can't even see." She pointed out. I smirked to myself and raised a hand. My palm began to glow until a bright light shone out of it. "Flashlight hands, cool."

"And Kira used to make fun of them." I grinned. I looked at her. "Let's find the others."

**Noah's POV**

"Running off on your own was a stupid decision." Ben scolded as we re-entered the clearing. We hadn't been able to find Kameron or Emily, so we'd headed back to the clearing. We'd hoped that maybe they'd found their way back on their own. "Naomi?"

The clearing was completely empty, the fire having died out. There was a half smoldered branch lying abandoned near the stump Kira had ignited. "Charlotte? Sera?" I called. Their bags and equipment were all still here, but there was no sign of the girls.

"They're gone." Kira looked around in confusion. Her eyes widened and she turned to Ben, looking scared. "What if whatever made Emily screamed came here and attacked them?"

"Don't jump to conclusions." Ben chided, though he looked concerned. He glanced at his watch. "They shouldn't have come after us yet. Something's got to be wrong."

"What do you want to do?" I questioned. He thought about it, then nodded to himself.

"Let's go looking for them, but we stick together. We don't need anyone else getting lost." He turned to Kira. "Can you create a fireball and hold it for a long period of time?"

"Yeah, that's easy." She nodded.

"Good. Do it. It's dark out, and they left their flashlights. Your fire should be the only light out there, so they'll be able to see it easier."

"Got it." Kira raised her hands, creating a ball of fire about the size of a basketball. She led the way into the jungle once more. Ben and I grabbed the other bags from the clearing before following her. We hung back a bit, close enough to see Kira, but far enough that we could whisper to each other without her overhearing.

"Do you really think we're going to find them? It's dark and we have no idea where we're going or what happened." I murmured, careful not to overhear. Ben nodded.

"I know. But the only other option we have is to head onto Caelus City. I just don't want to do that without knowing they're okay."

"It was your idea." I pointed out. He nodded.

"Doesn't mean I like it." He sighed. "Let's at least try. Twenty minutes, then we re-evaluate our options."

"Alright. Twenty minutes." I agreed. I didn't like the idea of just giving up on the search either, but there wouldn't be much point in searching if Sera, Naomi, and the others were already headed towards Caelus City. We'd be searching in circles for hours.

We shouldn't have stopped at all, looking back on how this all turned out.

**Emily's POV**

I sighed tiredly as Naomi, Sera and I stumbled through the dark trees. We'd managed to lose those creatures that had attacked us, but we'd also lost Charlotte and our way back to the clearing. We had no equipment, no food, no water, and my ankle was throbbing from the abuse it had been put through tonight. "Naomi, we've been walking for hours." I complained tiredly as the first bits of sunlight (or would it be called starlight on this planet?) started to break through the tree leaves. Naomi sighed.

"I know. I know." She sighed, stopping. I gingerly sat down on a large tree root that was sticking up from the ground. I raised my leg, rubbing my swollen ankle. "We're lost."

"Any idea how to get back to the ship?" I asked, glancing around. Sera shook her head.

"No, we need to head to Caelus City." She insisted. At my frown, she explained. "It's where Ben told us to go if he wasn't back with Noah, Kira, Kameron, and you in thirty minutes. That was hours ago."

"I know. We can meet them there." Naomi agreed.

"But what about Kameron? He doesn't know that was the plan." I pointed out. "He won't know where to go. We'll never find him if we leave."

"Yes we will." Naomi nodded. I looked at her and she sighed. "Calla put tracking chips in the suits."

"She what?" Sera and I demanded at the same time, outraged.

"Emily, given the fact that the reason you are here on this planet is because you stole a multi-million-dollar space ship, you really have no right to object." Naomi pointed out. I scowled, but stayed quiet. "Once we get to Chase and the others, he can use his bionics to track down Kameron."

"But he'll be out here for hours. Exposed, no food or water." Sera pointed out. Naomi sighed.

"It's not ideal." She admitted. "But if we stay out here and look, we may never find him, and we'll just put us in the same position as him. And by time we change our minds and do it this way, he'll have gone even longer without food or water. At least this way, we find him sooner rather than later."

"I suppose." "Fine." Sera and I both clearly felt the same way about the situation, but unfortunately, Naomi's plan was the best any of us could come up with. The ship could probably track him down too, but we were as close to it as we were to Caelus City.

"And besides, this is all assuming that none of the others have found him yet. Everyone knew about the plan but the two of you; he could be on his way to the city now with the others." She pointed out. I nodded.

"Alright. Which way?" Sera asked. She glanced at the sky, then at the trees.

"Caelus City was a straight shot north of where the clearing was. Do we know which way the stars rose and set in?" She asked. I considered it.

"If we want to go north, then we should go..." I looked at the stars, then turned to my left. "That way."

"You're sure?" She questioned. I nodded.

"It's basic science." I replied. She nodded.

"Let's go, and hope the others do the same." She declared.


	6. Separated Part 1: Evil Bugs

**Kameron's POV**

Despite the use of my flashlight hands, Charlotte and I still hadn't found any of the others, or our way back to the clearing we'd all stopped in. The starlight began to break through the trees' purple leaves just as we made it over a ridge, only to find a tree trunk with the letters EF cut into it.

"Okay, you were right; we're going in circles." Charlotte admitted, recognizing the marks I'd cut into the tree trunk just over an hour ago.

"Yeah." I didn't bother with the I-told-you-so. It wouldn't help the situation. "I don't see any sign that anyone's been here."

"Maybe we should just leave." She suggested. I looked at her in confusion. "There was no point in saying anything while we couldn't see, but Ben told everyone to go ahead to Caelus City if we got separated. We'd all meet up there."

"That…that makes sense." I nodded. I looked around. "Do you have any idea what direction that would be?"

Charlotte's face fell. "I don't know." She admitted. I sighed.

"Then what do you want to do?" I asked, frustrated. We were lucky to have not run into anymore of those creatures in the night, but we couldn't be sure we wouldn't find any, or even more dangerous animals. Alone, just the two of us, was dangerous, and we needed to figure out something soon, or this was not going to end well for us at all.

"I don't know. This is why I don't go outside when I don't have to." She complained. I furrowed my brow at her words, amused.

"Okay, Emily." I snorted. She gave me a look. "You convinced Leo to take you zip-lining and rock-climbing last summer, and didn't you use to go to the ranch your mom works on for riding lessons? You like being outside; you're just tired and thirsty."

"Fine." She sighed in defeat. "But that doesn't change the fact that we still don't have a plan on how we're going to find Caelus City."

"Well…" I looked around, trying to get a good understanding of our surroundings. Now that the area was bathed in a soft, pink light (probably a reflection off the leaves or something, given that they basically covered the sky), I could see that we weren't that far from a tall cliff. "Maybe if we get to higher ground?"

"I think there's a path over there." Charlotte pointed to a small series of rock ledges, almost like stairs leading up the side of the cliff. "That's convenient."

"Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Not unless you're in Turkey." I decided, shrugging. Charlotte led the way up the rocky stairs, keeping on hand on the cliff wall just in case she slipped.

"Turkey?" She asked after a moment., keeping her eyes glued to the rocky stairs. I watched the horizon, wondering what happened to the animals during the day. Maybe most of the planet was nocturnal?

"Trojan Horse? Troy? You heard of it?" I suggested. She nodded.

"Yeah, but that's in Greece." She pointed out. I chuckled. "It is. I know my Greek mythology, Kameron."

"Yeah, well I know my geography. Troy's in Turkey, which was part of ancient Greece at the time." I pointed out.

"Well look who is still the secret genius." She teased. "How do you know that stuff, anyway? You didn't even taken geography this year."

"The League had a big mission in Greece back in the day. I wanted to know more about it." I shrugged. "You ever been?"

"Greece, or Turkey?" She shook her head, not waiting for my response. "Nah, but Em and I have plans. We're going to go backpacking across Europe either this summer, or next. You?"

"Not yet. But there's this superhero pilgrimage thing that all sidekicks and new heroes have to go on before Geminus will let them join the League. Something about giving us a real understanding of what it means to be a hero, or something like that. Athens is, like, third on the list of places we're supposed to go to." I explained. I still wasn't sure the whole point behind the pilgrimage, but Mom and Dad both agreed with Alivia's rule, so it must have been important. Or it was their way of getting the summer to themselves. One or the other.

"Maybe I could convince Em to push our trip off. We could try and time them out so we could go together." Charlotte suggested as we made it to the top of the cliff. She stepped aside so I could step safely off the steps. "Or would that be weird? Or not allowed? I don't want to intrude on some sacred superhero thing."

"No, no. That would be cool, actually." I grinned at her. She smiled. "Yeah, we could totally do that. It sounds fun."

"Cool." She smiled back at me. After a moment, I cleared my throat after a moment.

"Uhm, we should probably…" I trailed off. She nodded, shaking herself.

"Yeah. Uh…" She turned around to survey the area, then frowned. "Actually, does this look familiar to you?"

I looked around. The area did look kinda familiar, but so had the area we'd been in an hour ago, and the area before that, and before that. "All of this looks the same to me. I can't tell."

"Wait, you can fly, right?" Charlotte looked up at the thick leaf cover. "Why don't you fly up past the trees and see if you can see the ship, or Caelus City."

"I'm sure we're too far away from anywhere to see it, but it can't hurt." I shrugged. She backed away and I leapt into the air. I soared into the air, sticking close to the nearest tree so even if I got turned around up there, I wouldn't lose where Charlotte was.

But as I burst through the leaves, a swarm of bugs leapt out of me, apparently disturbed by my sudden appearance. They were big for insects, each about the size of my hand, with blue scales and large pincers. They surrounded me and lunged, but I fended them off by creating an electrical field around me. A few made it through and lunged at me, but I swatted them away with ease.

I looked around, trying to see anything that I recognized. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the city or the Davenship, but there was a fairly large clearing not too far from us. I could just barely make out what looked like the remains of a fire pit in the center of it.

"Well?" Charlotte questioned as I landed. I shook my head.

"No city, no ship. But I think I can see where we stopped earlier." I explained, scratching the back of my shoulder. She brightened up instantly.

"Maybe we'll be able to orient ourselves and figure out which way we need to go in from there." She replied. I nodded.

"Let's go." I agreed.

"Which way?" She demanded. I pointed with one hand, still scratching with the other. "Alright. C'mon!"

I chuckled a little to myself as she enthusiastically started off in the direction I'd indicated, following shortly behind her.

**Charlotte's POV**

Once Kameron had pointed us in the direction of the clearing, we'd taken off in the direction at a steady pace. Well, steady-ish. I'd basically wanted to run in that direction, but Kameron had asked me a couple of times to slow down, pointing out that we didn't want to run into any of the animals from last night. I guess he had a point, but walking quietly through the woods when our friends might need us wasn't exactly my favorite thing in the world.

The clearing probably wasn't all that far, but between Kameron's slow pace and the difficulty of moving through the trees, it was taking us forever to make any progress. After 30 minutes, we reached a stream though, with some very familiar, colorful water bottles lying abandoned nearby.

"Hey, look!" I exclaimed, leaping over the tiny stream. I bent down and picked up a crimson-colored water bottle. "This one is mine! Is this where you and Em filled the bottles?"

Kameron hummed in response, kneeling down next to me. I frowned. "Kameron?" I asked. "Is this where you and Em were attack?"

"Uh...yeah. Think so." He agreed tiredly. I looked at him, concerned. I was usually pretty chatty compared to most people, but Kameron wasn't the quiet type himself, and he'd been rather quiet for the majority of the journey here.

"You okay?" I asked. He nodded heavily. "You sure?"

"Headache, thirsty." He replied. He saw my look and gave me a soft smile. "Probably dehydrated. Pass me Sera's bottle."

"Here." I grabbed the light blue water bottle, one of the only ones filled with the cap on. He took it gratefully and took a few quick sips, grimacing. "Is the water clean?"

"Yeah. Stomache's just off." He told me. "Another symptom of dehydration."

"Is sweating a sign of dehydration?" I asked critically, leaning forward to touch his forehead. It wasn't warmer than it should have been, but his skin was covered in a thin layer of cold sweat. He tried to pull away from my touch, but grimaced as he moved his shoulder. "You're hurt!"

"It's just a bug bite, Char. It's fine." He grumbled. I rolled my eyes.

"Let me see." I instructed. He rolled his eyes and turned around obediently, unzipping his uniform's vest. I pulled it down his shoulders before pulling his shirt down from the shoulder he'd been scratching earlier. I sucked in a breath when I saw the bite he'd mentioned - it was much larger than I'd expected, almost the size of a dime, with two rings of red around it. "Kam?"

"Hmm?" He craned his neck to get a better view of it himself, and though he couldn't see all of it, he paled from what he did see. "Oh."

"Emily said that some of the bugs here were poisonous." I reminded him. He nodded. "Does this look poisonous to you?"

"It doesn't look good." He admitted. I moved to sit in front of him, now very worried.

"What do we do?" I asked him slowly. He hesitated.

"Um...anti-venom." He blinked, taking a deep breath. "Uncle Ollie made on that works on almost everything."

"Do we have it?" I asked hopefully. It wouldn't do us very much good if it was sitting in Mighty Med on Caldera or Earth. To my relief, he nodded.

"Kira and I had some in our bags." He mentioned. He looked at me eyes wide. "If the team is heading to the city, they wouldn't have left any equipment behind."

Unfortunately, he was probably right. "What about the ship? Is there more on the ship?" I questioned. He nodded.

"There was too much to bring with us." He replied. I nodded, formulating a plan in my head. "Charlotte, that's a 3 hour walk. If the bite is poisonous, we don't know how long the effects will take to really hit. It could be..."

He trailed off, not wanting to say the word 'deadly' out loud. I nodded in understanding. "I know. But I don't have a better plan. Do you?" He shook his head. "Then it's what we're doing. We'll go back to the ship, get you that anti-venom, then figure things out from there. Alright?"

He sighed. "Alright." He agreed. I smiled and stood up.

"Alright. If the clearing is in that direction, and this is where you and Emily stopped for water, that means the ship is...in that direction." I decided before offering him my hand. He sighed and accepted it, slowly getting to his feet. I quickly gathered all the water bottles into Emily's bag, which had thankfully been left behind. I let Kameron lead the way, matching his pace as we started on our path back to the ship. I just prayed we got there in time.

**Kameron's POV**

I could feel Charlotte's eyes on me as I stumbled over a tree root I hadn't noticed jutting out of the ground at my feet, but I didn't bother commenting on it. I could tell she was worried by the way she kept encouraging me to talk to her and checking up on me. I really wanted to tell her that she was overreacting, that the bite was barely worse than a mosquito bite and we should focus on finding the others, but I knew it was more than that. I could feel pulses of heat coming off the bite and into my very cold body and it hurt a lot. I was pretty sure I had a fever – though it was impossible to tell if the chills I had were fever-born or just from this planet's ridiculous climate – and my stomach churned and ached liked that time I got food poisoning in the fifth grade.

"Pretty sure my uncle got bit by a Venusian Beetle when he was our age." I responded when Charlotte began to prod me about bug bites and poison. "Those are poisonous."

"Is that from this planet?" Charlotte asked, slowing down as we climbed a tall hill. It was vaguely familiar, so I figured we were going in the right direction, but I didn't remember it being such a difficult climb before. Maybe that was because it had been a downhill climb that time around, or maybe it was because my vision was blurring and the ground didn't feel all that steady underneath me this time. "Kam?"

I didn't answer her until we reached the top of the hill, not trusting that I'd be able to keep my nausea at bay. "Yeah." I eventually answered once my stomach had settled a little bit. "It was from Venusia."

"Could it have been the same kind that bit you?" She suggested. "Do you know if the anti-venom worked on that bite, or if they used something else?"

"Different bug, something else." I grumbled as she led us along. "If it were the same bug...it would have killed me already."

"That's...comforting, I guess." Charlotte mentioned. I nodded faintly. "You ready to keep going?"

"I-" I started to reply when I felt the nausea rise up again. Unable to fight it, I barely managed to stumble a few steps away from Charlotte before I hit my knees and expelled everything that was left in my stomach.

I sat there, dry heaving for minutes after I was done before I felt Charlotte place her hand on my shoulder. "I'm dying." I groaned, wrapping one arm around my stomach without making any effort to get up.

"Not on my watch you're aren't." She scolded, not unkindly before wrapping a hand under my arm. "C'mon. We need to keep moving."

I didn't give her much help as she pulled me to my fight, but she didn't complain, not even when she put my arm around her shoulders and supported me as she walked us along the path. "Char?" I mumbled, closing my eyes for a second as a wave of lightheaded-ness came over me.

"Kam?" She replied. I felt her head turn as she glanced at me before she continued on.

"If I don't...you know." I began, but I felt her shaking her head again. I opened my eyes to see her glaring at me.

"No. We're not talking about that." She insisted, pushing us on with more intensity. I managed to keep up the pace with her, but just barely.

"Char, please." I murmured. She sighed.

"What, Kam?" She muttered, her voice quivering just a tiny bit. When I didn't respond, she let out a quiet breath. "What do you need from me, Kameron?"

"Can you tell Kira and my mom and dad that I love them? And tell my parents I'm sorry I couldn't save them?" I asked her. "Please?"

Charlotte sighed heavily, closing her eyes tightly for a moment. "Alright." She agreed quietly before opening them once again. "But it doesn't matter. You know why?"

Despite how I felt, I managed to smile a little bit. "You won't let me die?"

"Damn straight." She replied, giving me a confident smile. "You're not getting off this team that easy."

**Charlotte's POV**

When Kameron had asked me to pass messages onto his family, I'd forced some optimism his way, refusing to let him think that. But now, almost three hours later, I couldn't even do that.

He'd started flagging really badly about a couple of hours ago, and even with me carrying most of his weight, we still weren't making as much progress as I'd hoped. We should have been back at the ship by now, but it was nowhere in sight. Which meant that either we hadn't traveled as far as we needed to, or we'd gotten lost somewhere along the way and were heading in the same direction. Given Kameron's condition, I wasn't sure which one terrified me more.

I could feel him burning up next to me, unnatural heat emanating from his almost limp body. He was still conscious, still walking, but his movements were slow, clumsy, almost making it even more difficult to navigate the rough terrain, and he'd mostly given up responding to my questions. Every once in a while, he'd mumble some sort of response, but it was never coherent enough for me to understand and he never repeated it when I asked him to.

"C'mon. Not much farther." I lied, not even totally sure if he could hear or understand me at this point. I blinked back tears, trying not to think about the possibility of us not finding the ship in time, or at all. With each passing second, that was seeming more and more likely, and I could feel my heart clench at the very thought. "You're going to be fine, okay? Just...just hold on." I choked out, my throat tight.

He didn't respond.

After several more minutes of pulling him along, I had to stop. I'd essentially been carrying him for hours now, and even though I knew we had to keep going, my legs were burning too bad from the effort to take another step.

"How're you doing, Kam?" I murmured as I gently lowered Kameron down next to a tree. I pursued my lips when I saw how pale his face was. His eyes were closed and though I should have been relieved by the fact that he was still clearly breathing, the rattle I could hear in his lungs scared me down to my core. "Kameron!" I shook him, hoping to wake him. His eyelids fluttered and he mumbled something under his breath, but I couldn't get him anymore conscious.

I took a slow, shaky breath. "Okay, we need a new plan." I muttered. The thing was, there were no better plans. Finding the ship was our only option, and I couldn't find it anywhere! The trees were too tall, the foliage too thick, the lighting too dim to see through.

I looked at the tree Kameron was sitting against and followed its tall trunk with my eyes until I saw the leaves at the top. Maybe...

I couldn't fly like Kameron could, but I'd always been good at climbing trees when I was a little kid. Hardly the same thing now, but if I could get to the top, I could see if the ship was anywhere close. There were risks - not only was it going to be a difficult climb, but I had no idea if those bugs from earlier would be nesting in this tree too.

I glanced down at Kameron, then made up my mind; it was just a risk I was going to have to take.

I moved around to the other side of the tree so that if I fell, I wouldn't land on Kameron, then looked up at the trunk. "How exactly am I going to do this?" I muttered to myself.

I stepped up to the trunk, but before I could begin to scale it, or attempt to scale it, I heard a sound coming from the direction Kameron and I'd been heading in. I froze when I heard it, having never heard something like it. It was like trill sound, but super deep.

I backed up to stand in front of Kameron and formed a laser sphere in my hand. It didn't sound like the monsters from last night, but it sounded like it could be just as dangerous or worst. Whatever it was, I was gonna give it one hell of a fight. I tensed as whatever it was got nearer, the sound of its deep trills growing louder in sound, until it leapt out from the bushes.

I blinked in confusion, nearly dropping my hands in shock when I saw the foot-tall creature leap out from the bushes.

It was like a weasel, like an actual weasel, but with a rough, brown hide and 6-inch long tusks, looking far too large for such a tiny creature. Hanging from its mouth, between the two tusks, was what looked like one of our emergency packs.

The weasel-thing sniffed at us, let out a deep, deep growl, then rushed past us into the bushes once more.

"Wha...?" I stared after it, confused before looking back in the direction it had come from. If that had been one of our emergency packs... "Okay, c'mon." I bent down and pulled Kameron to his feet.

"Hmmm?" He hummed in confusion, not raising his head as I pulled him along.

"We're almost there." I think, I silently added. I led us both through the bushes and up a long hill. I could have cried when we reached the top though, for there it was: the Davenship, sitting there in the clearing below, surrounded by plenty of those tiny weasel things. "Please be friendly, please be friendly." I muttered to myself as I walked Kameron down the hill towards the ship. The creatures scattered as we approached, apparently more afraid of us than we were of them. I placed my hand against the scanner on the side of the ship and the door to the cargo bay slowly lowered itself, causing the rest of the the weasels to flee. As I pulled Kameron inside, a couple ran past me, coming from inside the ship.

I didn't have time to think too much about how they'd gotten in as I dropped Kameron as gently as I could onto the floor of the cargo bay. "I'll be right back." I rushed past him to dig through the medical supplies containers. I sorted through it for a moment before pulling out one of the spare medical kits.

"Okay, okay." I raced back to his side and hit my knees next to him. I ripped open the medical kit and started going through the various vials and medical supplies until I was left with two that I didn't recognize. One of them had to be the right medicine - Kameron had said there would be a cure in the medical kit, and I knew none of the other stuff was it - but I didn't know which one.

"Kam, which is it?" I turned to him, but he was completely unconscious now, barely breathing. "No, no, no. Please, Kameron, wake up. Wake up and tell me which one to give you. Kameron!" I shook him roughly in hopes that it would rouse him, but he didn't so much as groan. "No, please, Kameron. Kameron, I don't know what to do. I don't know which is the right one."

When he still didn't respond, I looked back at the two vials. There were labels on them, sure, with names and what the dosage should be, but I didn't know what the names meant and unlike medicine at the drug store, they didn't have a convenient list of things that it treated.

"Um..." I glanced between the two, then made a decision. I ripped open two of the syringe packages in the medical kit and filled each with the correct dosage of the vials. "Both it is."

Thinking that it would work quicker if injected closer to the heart, I plunged both of the syringes into his chest. "Please don't die." I murmured, closing my eyes tight as I pressed down on both plungers at once. "Please don't die."

**Kameron's POV**

When I opened my eyes, I found myself staring up at the pulsing fluorescent lights of the ship cargo bay, something soft underneath my head. I screwed my eyes tight as the bright light assaulted my eyes and gave myself a few moments to adjust to it before opening them again.

Turning my head slowly, I saw Charlotte walk in from the left engine room carrying a brown, ugly-looking weasel thing with large tusks.

"Go, shoo!" She told it, ushering it out the cargo bay door and out into the Venusian jungle. Once it was gone, she wiped her hands in satisfaction and pressed her hand against the interior panel. I pushed myself onto my elbows as as the door closed.

"What was that?" I croaked, my throat feeling like it was coated with sandpaper. She spun around, relief flooding her face.

"Kameron!" She rushed towards me, dropping to her knees at the last minute before hugging me tightly.

"Whoa!" I gasped in surprise as she basically pulled me into a sitting position.

"Sorry." She apologized quickly, pulling back. She was grinning brightly, eyes filled with unshed tears of joy. "Sorry, I just...you're not dead!"

"Yeah, I gathered that." I chuckled, wincing at the pain in my throat. She leaned to the side and grabbed a water bottle off the top of one of the storage containers before handing it to me. I accepted it gratefully, taking a few gulps of it before replacing the cap. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." She smiled back at me. I looked around at the quiet ship.

"So, we made it back." I observed. She nodded. "Can I ask, why am I on the floor?"

"You passed out before we got here, and I wasn't going to carry you up the ladder." She explained before glancing behind her at the medicine kit. "Listen, I...I wasn't sure which medicine to give you." She told me apologetically before showing me two of the vials. "I gave you both. Figured that way, you'd still get whichever one was the cure. But I'm not sure if the other one is bad."

I looked over the vials and shook my head with a small smile. "That's the cure." I nodded at the one on the left. She nodded.

"And this?" She asked, sounding uncertain.

"A tetanus shot. Kinda glad I was unconscious for that - those hurt." I chuckled. She laughed in relief.

"Oh thank God. I was worried I'd given you Dengue Fever or something." She admitted. I chuckled again.

"I promise, nothing on this ship can give you Dengue Fever." I assured her. She nodded. "Well, at least none of the stuff that I brought. What was that thing you were carrying?"

"Some sort of wildlife. They don't seem dangerous, but they got into the ship while we were gone." She explained. I frowned, confused. "They bore a hole into the left engine room."

"That's not good." I commented. She shook her head.

"No, it's not. But we'll figure it out. At least you're not dead." She offered me a smile, squeezing my hand gently. "Thank you for not dying on me."

"Thank you for saving me." I replied. She smiled.

"You owe me one." She teased. I hesitated, then decided...screw it.

"How about dinner?" I suggested, my heart racing even as I asked the question. She stared at me, eyes going wide.

"What?" She asked, caught completely off guard. Okay, not a good sign, but there was really no going back.

"I just survived being poisoned by a deadly bug on an alien planet. I figured, if today's not my lucky day, I don't know what is." I explained. She nodded, still staring at me, her mouth slightly ajar. "Can I pay you back by buying you dinner?"

"I..." Charlotte pressed her lips together before smiling. "Yes."

"Yes?" Now it was my turn to stare at her. She nodded.

"Yes." She repeated before hesitating. "Provided my papa doesn't kill the both of us when we get back."

I grinned at her. "It's a date." I replied. She smiled.

"It's a date." She agreed. I nodded, then looked around.

"Now, we just have to find the others so we can go home." I commented. She nodded.

"Actually, I think I have an idea about that." She replied with a mischievous grin.


	7. Separated Part 2: Meet the Villagers

**Sera's POV**

Hours of walking later, and it still felt like we were making no progress. One of the stars was nearing the top of the sky while the second was just beginning to start making its descent from the top of the sky, making it around midday, according to Emily. We'd walked all night and all morning, trying to get back on track towards Caelus City. We'd gotten lost in the middle of the night, but Emily was sure she'd found the way using the two massive stars as a guide. Naomi nor I'd had a better sense of the direction in which we were heading, so we'd gone along with it, hoping, praying, that she was right.

"Do you think any of the others found Kameron?" I wondered out loud as we made our way through the trees. The sky had changed from a soft periwinkle color to a stronger shade of mauve since the day had begun, the faint, purple light breaking through the leaves in a pretty fashion. Under any other circumstances, I'd be struck with awe at the sight – I'd been stunned by the beauty of Earth's nature and its ecosystem, but this blew that out of the water – but I was too focused on our mission to pay too much attention to it.

"Probably. He just has that kind of luck, you know?" Emily replied, stumbling over a fallen log. I offered my hand to help her, only for her to push it away with an appreciative smile and a slight shake of her head. She grimaced as she continued but didn't make a single complaint. She hadn't complained all day, to both my and Naomi's surprise. Her ankle, still badly sprained from last night, had to be killing her, and she wasn't usually known for keeping quiet about annoyances or pains like that. But she'd stayed mostly quiet throughout the day about it, not saying a word about it.

"If they haven't, we can track him using his suit's tracker." Naomi added, giving me a reassuring smile. I nodded.

"I know. Just worrying." I mentioned. "I hope the others made it to Caelus by now."

"Well, I'm pretty sure Kira's with Ben and Noah. Noah had the map on them, and Ben had the compass, so I'd be willing to bet that they're there, together. Hopefully, Kameron and Charlotte are with them." Naomi reasoned. I nodded.

"Yeah, hopefully." I agreed. I glanced at Emily, who was leaning against a tree. "I think we should take a break."

"No, we're making good time." Emily insisted. Naomi hesitated, seeming to agree with me. "I don't want to spend another night out in these trees. Do you?"

"Fine." Naomi agreed reluctantly. "But if you need a break, you speak up."

"Will do." Emily saluted her teasingly before starting to push forward. I'd started to follow her when, suddenly, a sharp _crack_ hit my ears. I stopped instantly, spinning around towards the source of the noise, though I could tell it was a bit of a distance away.

"What's wrong?" Naomi hissed, pulling out her blaster instinctively. "You hear something?"

"That way." I nodded towards the source of the sound. "It sounded too far away for whatever it was to see us, but it sounded large." I heard another _crack_ , almost immediately echoed by a third. "I think there's more than one." I added, making my judgement off the frequency of the sounds and how loud they were getting. I looked back at her, then at Emily, who was leaning heavily against the trunk of a tree, her blaster out. "They're definitely getting closer."

"How far?" Emily questioned.

"Hundred feet?" I guessed. Emily glanced at Naomi.

"What do you want to do?" She asked uncertainly. Naomi hesitated, then glanced at Emily and nodded to herself.

"You two stay here." She instructed. "I'm going to go check it out."

"What? No!" I protested. Emily nodded.

"Sera's right. Splitting up is why we're in this mess!" She agreed. Naomi sighed.

"I know, and I agree. Splitting up? Terrible idea." She agreed, kneeling down while she pulled out her second blaster, quickly double-checking its load. "But Em, if that thing turns out to be dangerous, you can't run, and that can turn out really badly if it turns out to be a dangerous creature. Alternatively, things could go really wrong if it is a dangerous creature and we don't check it out. Splitting up is the only option."

"What if you get lost?" I argued. Naomi smiled and waved the blaster before re-holstering it.

"The plasma my blaster shoots are blue, right? Now that practically blends in with the sky on Earth, but here, where the sky is purple..."

"It'll be two different colors. It'll be like a flare gun." Emily realized. I hesitated, having never heard of a 'flare gun', but Emily seemed pretty on board with the plan. "My blaster shoots green plasma."

"Exactly. Once I've determined whether or not what's following us is a threat, I'll shoot into the sky. You shoot yours once you see it, and I'll follow the light back to you guys." She explained. She sighed. "I wish we'd thought of this last night."

"It was kinda chaotic, and it would have alerted the creatures to where we were." I assured her. "But that brings up a good point - what if whatever it is turns out to be dangerous? Is shooting the sky a good idea?"

"Obviously, I'll shoot it first." Naomi explained. I gave her a concerned look and she sighed. "Alright, fair. If you hear shots but don't see them, and I don't shoot up a flare within 20 minutes, then go onto Caelus City without me. Track me like we plan on tracking Kam."

"But-" I began to protest, but Emily cut me off.

"Cool. Have fun killing the monster." She told her aunt, taking a seat on a large root nearby. Naomi rolled her eyes and bid us farewell before marching off towards the source of the sound.

As soon as she was gone, I spun around to confront Emily, furious with her. "Are you really that flippant? You can't seriously expect that we'll leave without her!"

Emily rolled her eyes, leaning back on the root to rest her back against the tree. "Of course not. If she's not back in ten minutes, we're tracking her down and dragging her ass to Caelus, monster or no monster." She placed her blaster in her lap, then brought her hands up to place them between her head and the tree trunk. "Sometimes it's just easier to agree with them to their faces and then do whatever the hell you want once they're gone."

I stared at her for a moment. "I don't know if that's crazy or genius, but it's definitely what Kira would call 'chaotic'."

She cracked a smile at that. "I prefer to think of it as all three."

**Naomi's POV**

I glanced around, taking care of where I stepped, not wanting to alert whatever creature was following us. Now that I was closer, I could hear what Sera had - movement, multiple creatures, large enough to be of concern for us. I couldn't quite see them yet, but I was getting close.

I had both my blasters out, ready to fire, but I hoped I wouldn't have to use them. I could probably handle whatever creatures were following us - now that it was light enough to see and the initial panic of last night had faded, I was fairly sure I could at the very least scare the creatures off - but I didn't want to waste too much ammunition on them. My blasters' plasma cartridges were full, but they only held so many shots before they'd have to be recharged and I couldn't be sure I'd get a chance to do so before rescuing Bree, Chase, Jaden, and the others. I'd have to be certain of my shots and to use as little as possible, just to be safe.

I stopped suddenly, hearing one of the creatures move very close by. I pressed myself up a tree trunk and glanced around it. I could see a couple of animals sniffing at the ground. They weren't the same creatures as last night - these were pale brown, not black, built more like deer, but obviously heavier-set, and they had odd-looking snouts that reminded me sort of pig. It was certainly an odd sight, but they also didn't seem too dangerous. Still, I couldn't be sure.

I raised my weapon, intending to shoot near them, not at them, to scare them off. They didn't look like predatory animals, but just in case they were, it would be better to get rid of them than let them follow us. But before I could shoot, I heard a noise come from behind me.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you."

**Sera's POV**

"She's been gone too long." I decided, still pacing in the dirt. Emily sat up properly, pulling her leg off the nearby root.

"It's been fifteen minutes." She pointed out before sighing. "I know she said to wait twenty, but she should have been back by now. Or we should have at least heard a shot."

"Exactly." I agreed. She stumbled to her feet, wincing when she put weight on her bad ankle. "That looks bad. Are you sure you didn't break it?"

"Nah. It's just worse because we've been walking all night." She let out a slow breath, carefully adjusting her weight from one ankle to the other. "I'll be fine. Let's go find Naomi."

I looked around, then smirked. "Hold on." I told her before walking up to the base of one of the trees. I looked until I saw what I was looking for her, then raised my hand and blasted a shot of ice straight up. I jumped back as a branch fell from the leaves, landing on the ground in front of us with a heavy thud. I smiled to myself, picked it off the ground, and held it out to Emily. "Walking stick." I explained when I saw the confused look on her face. She let out a soft laugh and accepted it.

"Let's go." She replied, gesturing for me to lead the way. We began to walk through the trees, taking it slow both to accommodate for Emily and to ensure that we didn't walk into any surprises. However, as we got nearer to where Naomi had been headed, I began to hear a surprising sound.

"What is it?" Emily demanded, picking up on my surprise. I frowned and glanced at her.

"She's...talking to someone." I frowned. I couldn't tell who she was talking to - either they hadn't spoken or were basically whispering - but she was definitely talking, and loud.

"Maybe she found the others!" Emily grinned and picked up the pace. I sighed and followed her, but once we got closer, it became evident to both of us that she was not talking to one our friends.

"...just lost, really. My ship crashed a few miles away." She was saying, her voice unusually loud. I nodded in the direction that her voice was coming from and Emily and I carefully made our way through the trees, keeping low to avoid being seen.

"Oh no." Emily hissed at one point, dropping down very suddenly. I pressed myself up against the nearest tree and dared to look past it.

Naomi was standing in a clearing, her hands raised and her weapons missing. Surrounding her were three, tall, pale-skinned people: two men who were holding spheres with silver, almost glowing, blades, and a girl with what looked suspiciously like a machete. One of the men had deep blue hair with what looked like purple streaks throughout it, cut short, while the other was completely bald. The girl, or at least she looked like a girl, stood between them, her light blue and purple hair in milkmaid braids (a style Kira had introduced to me only a couple of months before). They all appeared to be wearing some dark-colored armored vests or tunics over gold shirts. If I had to choose one word to describe them, I would say they were warriors.

"Shit!" Emily hissed, eyes wide from where she crouched. I motioned for her to come my way, where she'd be less likely to be seen. She crawled over to me and pressed her back up against the large trunk. "Those are Venusians!"

"I know." I muttered, trying to come up with a plan. Naomi was captured and there were three of them. Between us, we only had one weapon, and Emily was injured. Running wasn't an option, but I didn't feel confident about our chances against the three of them. Even if we won that fight, if any of us got hurt, we were miles from any real help. "We're outnumbered..."

"Surprise attack?" Emily suggested. "Take them while they don't know we're here?"

"Search the forest." The girl ordered just then. "There's no way she's alone."

"I am, I swear." Naomi protested, taking a step towards her, only to have a spear shoved in front of her face. The girl ignored her.

"Go." She ordered her men. They nodded and started towards the trees, while the girl aimed a blaster, one of Naomi's I was sure, at our friend's head. "Don't try anything, and they won't be harmed."

"There is no 'they'." Naomi growled.

"They're looking for us." I hissed. Emily closed her eyes.

"Shit!" She cursed.

"We could...um..." I panicked.

"You should run." She murmured. I looked at her sharply. "I can't outrun them, and Naomi's caught. You can get away and get help. Find Ben."

"No way, I'm not leaving you guys." I refused. She gave me a look.

"Sera." She said sternly. I matched her gaze.

"Emily." I insisted. We both flinched as the sound of footsteps got closer. "We should surrender, then escape later. We're stronger together."

Emily glanced towards the trees, where the Venusian soldiers were getting closer and closer by the second. She swore again and started digging through her pockets for something. Before I could ask what she was doing, she literally tackled me.

"Hey!" I instinctively exclaimed as she shoved me down. I felt her hand slap across my neck as I tried to get her off of me.

"Hey!" Another set of hands pulled her off of me, and suddenly, we were both being pulled apart by the two Venusian soldiers.

"Look what we found." One of them chuckled to the other from behind us. They started pushing us through the trees, back to Naomi.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I hissed at Emily. She glanced at me, then at the soldiers pushing us forward and didn't respond.

We were shoved into the clearing, where Naomi and the girl were waiting. Naomi's eyes widened in shock and confusion when she saw us. It was the Venusian's eyes that caught my attention more, however. While they weren't all that different from human's or Calderan's in shape, their coloring was incredibly unique. They were sort of multi color, a swirl of blues and whites behind the pupil that reminded me of the toy marbles my dad had bought me when I was younger.

"Alone, huh?" The girl mused, giving Naomi a look before looking over us. I felt my heart skip a beat in my chest when I realized how dangerous this could get. I may not be as identical to my Calderan sisters as my mother is, but I was still very clearly of Calderan blood. Even if they went easy on Emily and Naomi, this would not go well for me. But to my surprise, she only examined me for a moment before moving onto Emily. After a moment, she turned to the two men.

"My father's going to want to see them." She decided, turning to them. One of them aimed their sphere at me.

"Get moving." He ordered as the girl, clearly the leader despite appearing to be closer to my age than Naomi's, started to lead the way. The soldiers kept a steady pace behind us, not directly so but close enough that running wasn't an option, while the girl stayed a bit ahead.

As we walked, Naomi glanced at us. "Where's Sera?" She hissed, keeping her voice down. "Are the others with you?"

I frowned at her. "Um...I'm right here?" I responded, as confused as she looked.

"No, no, no. You're Kira." Emily whispered, glancing over her shoulder to see if the soldiers were listening in. Satisfied that they couldn't hear her whisper, she ducked in a little closer. "Cybermask, makes you look like your cousin. Didn't think they'd be so nice to Calderans." She explained in a rush.

"So that's why you tackled me." I hummed. She smirked a little.

"That's genius, Em." Naomi complimented, but the technopath's smile faded.

"You say that now; the mask won't last forever." She warned. Suddenly, one of the soldiers pushed me from behind.

"Quit whispering!" He snapped. We made the rest of the trek in tense silence, Naomi sending angry glares at our captors, Emily trying to keep up without putting too much weight on her bad ankle, and me wondering just how long this mask had bought us.

**Xxx**

We walked for nearly an hour under the cold, Venusian sun, all of our captors silent the entire trip. But eventually, just as we broke through the thick foliage, we saw where the soldiers were taking us. A little way in front of us, past a river, sat a tiny village, a little under 2 dozen cabins and small wooden houses all sitting in a circle with a tall post sitting in the middle.

The girl led us up to a plank bridge that led across the slowly moving water. "Watch your step, the water's cold." She warned, not unkindly, before leading the way across it.

We were watched from the moment we entered the village, a few Venusians stopping what they were doing in the circle to stare as we approached. One of them rushed into the house directly opposite of the village's entrance, and quickly emerged with another Venusian man.

"Father!" The girl greeted with a smile, increasing her pace to meet up with him in front of what I figured had to be his house. The two soldiers grabbed us from behind, stopping us from moving as she went to speak with him.

I watched him carefully, trying to get a sense of how dangerous he was. Clearly, he was in some sort of position of power here - otherwise, we wouldn't have been brought to him. Perhaps he was some sort of village elder, like the ones we had back home? He did appear to be older than the soldiers who had captured us, but they all seemed pretty young so maybe I was off. He didn't dress like an elder, that's for sure - his clothes, consisting of a gold, sleeveless shirt underneath a black vest, along with black pants, and a gold bracelet around his wrist, and his hair, purple with blue wisps in it and cut into a short mohawk, all seemed too out of place for an elder.

Eventually, he and the girl stopped speaking and they approached us, his grey-swirl eyes now looking at us critically. He looked between us before addressing Naomi, correctly guessing that she was our leader. "My name is Jeremiah Jewel. I am the leader of this village. Jillian here says she and her hunters found you in the woods, about to kill a _fawglet_."

"A... _fawglet_?" Naomi asked, unsure of what he meant. She frowned. "You mean that animal?"

"It's a nearly dead species. They're protected." Jillian explained, giving Naomi such an offended look that I could only be reminded of the time that Emily made the mistake of insulting the color pink in front of Kira.

"I wasn't going to kill it, just scare it off. We didn't know what it was." Naomi explained quickly. Jeremiah nodded thoughtfully.

"How are we supposed to believe that, when you lied about the number of accomplices you had? Who are you really?" He demanded sharply. "We don't take kindly to poachers here, or off-worlders for that matter."

He thinks we're here for the animals, I realized. "We're scientists." Emily piped up before Naomi or I could come up with an explanation. I nodded quickly, following her lead.

"Biologists from Malmarn." I added, feeling that more details would make us seem more legitimate. "Our ship was damaged in a meteor shower and we were forced to land here on our way home."

"We crashed a few hours south of here." Naomi added. "I explained this to your daughter."

"And yet you lied about your compatriots." He noted. Naomi nodded, adopting an apologetic look on her face.

"They approached me with weapons, I was scared they would hurt my friends. This is their first space journey. I'm responsible for them." She lied before looking at Jillian. "And I'm sorry for threatening the creature. I didn't recognize it and thought it might be dangerous. But I really was only trying to scare it away. I wasn't going to hurt it."

Jeremiah looked us over, skeptical, while we tried not to fidget. He'd called Jillian and her companions hunters. Maybe this wasn't a military camp. If we were lucky, really lucky, we might just be able to walk out of here.

"You're scientists?" He questioned.

"Well, I am. Dr. Natasha Rose." Naomi offered her his hand, but he didn't shake it. She lowered it awkwardly before glancing at us. "And these are students learning the field."

"Emma Chase. She's Olive McLean." Emily added, following Naomi's lead and not giving him our real names. "Biologists-to-be."

"Hmm..." Jeremiah considered it, then looked at Naomi. "How'd you get through the barrier? It's around the entire planet."

"Professor Slime," I layered on the spite in my voice for extra effect, "had all our ships installed with his own tech, which including phasing cloaks. He's gone, thank the skies, but the ships are still in rotation. Ours still had the tech, I guess."

He looked at me and I had to force myself to breathe, praying that he'd believe me. Enough of it was based on the truth – Professor Slime had imposed his technology all over the planet during his nearly 80-year dictatorship, and I knew phasing technology was on the list because of my classes with Hapax. I just hoped that I'd been convincing enough to make them believe.

When Jeremiah didn't say anything at first, Naomi cleared her throat. "We were heading to a city south of here to see if we could catch a ride on a cargo ship or something back to our planet." She lied. "We'll be happy to leave and not bother-"

"Tie them up." Jeremiah ordered and suddenly, the soldiers grabbed us from behind. I was pulled back, my hands forced together as the soldier tied a thick rope around them.

"Hey!" "You can't do this!" We protested. After my hands were bound, I was pushed to sit in front of the post in the middle of the clearing. Emily and Naomi were sat down as well, before the three of us had our hands further tied to the post.

"I want to believe you." Jeremiah began.

"Then do so! Let us go!" Naomi protested, struggling against the restraints.

"We are at war. We can not afford to take chances or accept information lightly." He told us, his tone stern. He raised his chin. "You'll stay here tonight. In the morning, one of you will take me to your ship. There's a supply ship coming in tomorrow evening; if I'm satisfied with what I see at your ship, I'll ensure that the three of you have seats on the caravan heading back to Caelus City."

"And if you're not satisfied?" I dared to ask. He fixed me with a cold look.

"Then I'll personally escort you to the Venusian High Council." He assured us. I felt a chill run down my spine, and I wondered if that was what had happened to our parents.

**Naomi's POV**

Unfortunately, it was very clear from the start that escape was not going to be easy. The rope bindings were tight, but not overly so, so they would be easy enough to escape given some time (and, if time wasn't something we had, Sera could break through them with her strength or freeze them until they were fragile enough to break through easily), so the one thing we really needed was opportunity. But with Jeremiah's guards watching us constantly, and us sitting in the middle of the small but busy village, it didn't seem like we were going to get a chance to make a break for it. Stealth was essential here, given their weapons and that they clearly knew the woods better than us.

I couldn't help but think that Sera and Emily should have just left without me. That'd been my intention back in the woods - I knew Sera would have been able to hear my voice with her heightened Calderan-senses - but I hadn't counted on them being captured too. I wasn't sure if it had been intentional or not, though I suspected the former. And while I appreciated their effort to stay together and understood the logic behind it, it did make things trickier. Alone, I might have been able to convince the village leader of my intentions or would have been able to wait until I had a good opportunity to escape, but with them here, it would be so much more difficult. I just hoped it wouldn't be impossible.

"Hey, Em? Any idea how long that cybermask will last?" I asked, trying to figure out exactly what I had to worry about. I made sure to keep my tone low in case any Venusians were listening. They didn't appear to be - aside from the guards, most of the village appeared to be going about their day as usual - but I didn't want to take any chances.

Emily raised her head, leaning it against the post. She was quiet for a moment, then hummed to herself. "It's at 68% now, so...5 hours, 26 minutes, give or take."

"Give or take _what_?" Sera asked rhetorically, surprised by Emily's very specific number.

"24 seconds." Emily responded anyway. I could just picture Sera rolling her eyes at her.

"Why'd you even have the cybermask on you, anyway?" Sera hissed, fidgeting in her restraints. "And why was Kira's face already programmed into it?"

"I don't like not having something tech on me at all times, and we weren't bringing our Davenwatches. Also, you're welcome." Emily retorted defensively.

"That doesn't explain the Kira already being programmed into the mask." Sera argued.

"Well that is between Kira and I, isn't it?" Emily snapped. I let a breath out through my nose, losing my patience with them.

"Quit it! Now is not the time for fighting." I warned.

"She started it!" Emily protested, sounding all of five years old. Sera sighed.

"No, she's right. I did. I'm sorry, Emily, I am grateful for the mask." She apologized with a deep sigh. "I just..."

She trailed off, but Emily nodded in understanding. "I know." She offered softly. "It's okay. We'll get out of here before it dies."

The 'before they find out you're Calderan' went unsaid, but we all heard it anyway. I didn't know what they would do to Sera if they found out, but I knew it wouldn't be good.

"How are we going to get out of here?" Sera murmured. I sighed.

"It's not going to be easy, given that we're being watc-" Emily's elbow suddenly connected with my ribs, cutting me off.

"What do you want?" She said loudly, before I could question it. Turning, I could see Jillian approaching us with a small box in her hands. She'd changed out of her armor and undid her bun so that her hair, a nice mixture of blues and purples, hung down just past her shoulders.

"No need to be so defensive." Jillian pointed out as she continued to approach.

"You'll have to excuse her. She doesn't like being tied up." Sera apologized sarcastically. Emily shot her a smirk before scowling up at the Venusian.

"What do you want?" Emily repeated her question. Jillian opened the box and lowered it so that we could all see inside. It was filled with what looked like rolls of fabric and cloth.

"You were limping earlier." Jillian noted. "I'm guessing you rolled your ankle. I thought you might want it wrapped. It's got to hurt."

Emily looked at her for a moment, then glanced at me uncertainly. I nodded slowly. "Just wrap it. Nothing else." I decided. Emily nodded, still seeming unsure but following my lead.

Jillian knelt down in front of Emily and unlaced her boot before carefully working it off. I grimaced sympathetically when I saw how bad the swelling was. Emily sure downplayed the severity of it. It didn't look so bad that a ligament could be torn, but I definitely wouldn't have been keeping the pace that Emily had on it. " _Polu_ ," Jillian swore (or at least it sounded like the Venusian equivalent of a swear), "how long have you been walking on this?"

"Since we crashed." Emily lied, wincing as Jillian began to tightly wrap it. I watched her hands as she did, wanting to ensure she was doing as she said she was and not doing something weird to my niece.

"I know it doesn't seem like it, but we're not the enemies here. Ever since the war started, we've had to be careful with outsiders." Jillian explained as she worked, glancing at us. "Calderans have invaded before."

"They have?" Sera looked at her sharply. Jillian frowned, but nodded.

"A few months ago, a Calderan soldier was arrested in the city." She explained. "Ever since, things have been twice as tense as they were before."

"What happened to the Calderan?" Sera questioned. Jillian shrugged.

"No idea." She replied nonchalantly. Sera looked like she was about to demand more information, but Emily subtly stopped her with a hand on her knee.

"Just because Calderans invaded doesn't mean we should be treated like prisoners." She pointed out, looking meaningfully at Sera when she spoke. Thankfully, Sera took the hint and quieted down, though I knew she couldn't have been happy about it.

"We have to be careful." Jillian simply replied as she finished wrapping Emily's ankle.

"Is that what your father says, or what you think?" I asked softly. Jillian stopped what she was doing and looked at me sharply.

"My father is doing what's best for our people." She told me, glaring at me. I nodded, but she continued. "We already saw our first village destroyed before the barrier went up. Do you really think we're going to take chances with this one because a few off-worlders didn't like our security measures?"

"I understand. You must protect your people." I responded quietly. Jillian went to get up in a huff, clearly upset.

"Wait." Emily called, stopping her. Jillian paused and looked back at her. "Thank you."

Jillian nodded once. "I'll bring dinner in a few hours." She replied stiffly before walking away.

"At least they don't plan on starving us." Emily commented dryly once Jillian was out of earshot.

"My mom's in Caelus!" Sera hissed.

"At least we guessed right about one thing this trip." Emily commented. "Our dads and the other parents should be with her."

"Hopefully." I agreed. "Alright, I have a plan. Well, part of a plan."

"What percentage of a plan?" Emily asked. I rolled my eyes, recognizing the old movie reference (Calla had instituted an 'old movie' night once every couple of weeks around the same time that I'd moved in with them and Emily had just loved those weird superhero movies with the talking tree).

"We wait until Jillian brings us dinner, break out of these bonds, and take her hostage until we can escape into the trees." I decided. "We'll be cutting it close with the mask, but I think it'll work."

"I don't have anything better." Sera admitted. Emily glanced between us.

"You want to take a hostage? Um..." She trailed off before letting out a sigh. "I really wish I had a good argument against that right now."

"We're not going to hurt her, and they won't attack if we have their leader's daughter." I explained. Emily nodded slowly.

"Alright. I...I _think_ I can maybe disable their weapons." She offered after a moment.

"You can?" Sera looked at her in surprise. Emily nodded at the guards standing nearby. They were talking to each other quietly, a little more relaxed than you would think of two guards. Neither was paying attention to us, but they each held a large sphere in their hands with a plasma blade on the end.

"The plasma spheres have some sort of power bank, in the lower base, I think. They can shoot as well as stab." Emily explained, cocking her head to the side a little as she used her powers to get a 'read' on the tech integrated with the weapons.

"Your powers work on their tech?" I asked. She nodded.

"Enough that I can sense it. I don't think I can control it, but I do think I can deactivate them." She replied.

"Insane." Sera shook her head, impressed. Emily smirked.

"Alright. That's what we'll do. Be ready when Jillian comes back." I ordered. The girls both nodded and were silent for a moment.

"Okay, seriously, why were you and Kira messing around with the cybermasks?"

**Sera's POV**

While we'd all hoped that dinner would be served sooner rather than later, it was a long time before Jillian, or anyone else in the village for that matter, interacted with us in any way. The guards seemed uninterested in us, more focused on discussing either of their chances with some woman named Julia. Naomi, Emily, and I talked at first, first about our theories about how the others were faring, then more about the plan for the rest of the trip. I tuned them out about then - everything they were coming up with would have to be rehashed anyway once we met up with the others - and started looking around the village curiously.

It was odd to see how... _normal_ the village looked. I could see a couple of adults talking to a group of children just beyond two of the houses, one of them drawing something out on a large slate of wood that was leaning against the side of the house. It reminded me of Hapax's classes, his lessons taught inside his cave and the important things scratched into rock plates. There were a group of Venusians bringing in cut logs from the woods, setting them up near the wooden houses. It soon became clear that they intended to replace the temporary shelters with sturdier, better protected log cabins like the rest of the village was made of. An hour or so after Jillian bandaged Emily's ankle, we saw a group of hunters bring in prey that, from what I heard, was to be cooked and distributed later in the evening amongst the entire village.

"These are just like the camps back home." I murmured mostly to myself. Naomi looked over at me though.

"They've been hit hard by the war too." She agreed. I shook my head.

"If their people are suffering, then why don't they end this?" It didn't make any sense to me at all. "Why'd they break the peace treaty if this was going to hurt their people as much as ours?"

Naomi was quiet for a long time before finally responding. "War isn't simple, Sera." She murmured quietly.

"It's just so...so wrong." I murmured, shaking my head. I was angry at the Venusians, so very, very angry, but these were children and innocents suffering here. They didn't deserve this anymore than the children and innocents back home. Naomi nodded quietly, agreeing with me. "We have to stop this."

"Hey, I hate to be that person, but...is that something we can even do?" Emily spoke up, glancing between us. I looked at her.

"Excuse me?" I questioned.

"Don't get me wrong, I want to help. I do, but…this is a war, and we are children." She pointed out. Naomi let out a sarcastic laugh.

"Oh, are you just _now_ realizing that you're way in over your heads?" She asked. Emily and I both looked at her and she paused, realizing how that sounded. "Sorry, Benji's been rubbing off on me."

"We can tell." Emily commented. Naomi rolled her eyes, but Emily continued. "I'm just saying that we have to be realistic about what we can do. Saving our parents, that's possible. Ending a war? I'm not so sure."

"We can't give up." I argued. Naomi nodded.

"She's not saying that. No one's giving up. Emily's just trying to be realistic. Like I said, war isn't simple, neither is ending it." She explained. Emily nodded in agreement. "But right now, that isn't our priority. I'm not saying it won't become our priority," she added quickly before I could object, "but we need to take this step by step. We save the Elite Force, then we focus on the intergalactic war. Alright?"

I sighed. "Fine." I agreed. Saving our parents was important, I knew that. I just hated seeing people suffering.

"Hey." Emily murmured gently, elbowing me for effect. I looked up at her and she was giving me a sympathetic smile. "I didn't mean that the war couldn't be stopped, just that we might not be the right people for the job. Our parents might be."

"You think they can end this?" I asked softly. She smiled.

"They've done the impossible before." She reminded me. She started to say something else, then paused when she saw a group of the hunters from before beginning to take trays of food to the individual cabins. Most of the people were inside now; there were a few stragglers in the circle, but the center of the village was quieter than it had been all day. "I think it's go time."

"I think so too." Naomi agreed. "Sera?"

"Watch your fingers." I warned as I released a small burst of icy mist from my fingers. It coated the ropes around our hands, making them slippery, just enough that I was able to work my hands through them without too much damage to my hands. I froze the ropes around Emily and Naomi's hands next, being careful to limit my movement as much as possible to avoid getting caught.

"Alright, be ready." Naomi warned. Almost as if on queue, Jillian walked out of the house where they'd been preparing the food, balancing three plates on top of a long wooden board.

She walked up to us and knelt down in front of me. "How am I supposed to eat if my hands are bound?" I asked innocently, as we'd planned. Jillian gave me a skeptical look.

"Don't try anything." She warned before nodding over at the guards nearby. They were new guards - the ones from earlier had been replaced an hour or so ago - but they seemed no better armed than the ones from before. She looked me over again, then carefully placed the tray on the ground next to us. She leaned in to untie my hands at the base of the post, and when she did, I acted. I twisted my legs around hers, using mine to pull her off her feet. Naomi and Emily both pushed up from the ground in one fluid motion, the older of the two swiping Jillian's sword right out of its sheath on her hip. She grabbed Jillian's arm before the Venusian could untangle herself from my grip and pulled her back to hold the blade against her neck.

The guards reacted instantly, raising their spheres to point them at Emily and me. The blades of their spheres began to glow for a moment, then the color died all together. Looking at Emily, she had two fingers pressed to her temple and one hand outstretched towards the guards and their weapons. "Stand down!" The guards ordered, despite the technopath having disabled the ranged abilities of their spheres.

"Release me!" Jillian demanded, glaring at Emily and I from where Naomi was holding her.

The commotion was loud enough to bring the attention of the people from within the buildings, Jeremiah Jewel himself bursting out of the biggest of the houses in a rush. His eyes narrowed when he saw what was happening.

"If you hurt her, I will destroy you." He threatened.

"We don't want to do that. We're just going to walk away." Naomi told him. She glanced at us and jerked her head towards the bridge. Emily and I slowly started to back away towards it, keeping our eyes locked on the soldiers. Two more emerged from the house alongside Jeremiah but were unarmed. To our surprise, no one else drew a weapon against us. "If you let us leave in peace, we won't hurt your daughter."

"I'll kick your ass." Jillian threatened.

"Shh." Naomi silenced her before continuing to address the village leader. "We'll let her go once we're free. Do not follow us, or you won't like what happens."

"You first." I said to Emily. She nodded silently and stepped onto the bridge, one hand still outstretched towards the weapons. One by one, we made it across the bridge without an issue.

"They're following." Emily said to Naomi, still focusing on the bridge. Sure enough, the two guards from before were crossing the bridge, but they weren't moving so fast that they were a problem. "You were right about them not attacking the village princess."

"I'm not a princess!" Jillian snapped. "But you can be sure that if you hurt me, my father's going to raise an army against you."

"With what weapons?" Naomi challenged, tightening her grip. I looked at her in surprise. "The only weapons we saw all day were the hunter's machetes, and the two spheres the guards had. They switched weapons when the new ones took over, you didn't notice that?"

"No." I admitted. Naomi nodded, pausing when Emily stopped her and motioned for her to move to the left to avoid stumbling over a fallen log as we broke through the tree line.

"I did. I'm going to guess that aside from the hunting machetes, you guys don't have too many weapons, do you?" She questioned, looking down at Jillian. The girl's silent scowl was all the answer we needed. "Alright."

Naomi suddenly released Jillian and pushed her away from us. Jillian started forward to attack, but Naomi held her at bay with the machete.

"Go home, Jillian." She warned. "Turn around and walk away."

"Why are you doing this? Why-" Jillian stopped suddenly, staring at me. I frowned, confused, until I saw Emily's grimace.

"We did say we'd be cutting it close." She mentioned.

"You're Calderan." Jillian realized. I sighed and pulled the now dead cyber mask off my neck where Emily had attached it.

"We should go." I told Emily and Naomi without paying Jillian any more attention.

I turned to follow Emily deeper into the trees. Then, I heard a sharp gasp from Naomi. I didn't stop to find out what was wrong, instead spinning around immediately, creating a shield of ice as I moved. A blast of energy coming my way instead hit the ice shield, leaving me unharmed. Jillian stared at me, surprised by my actions.

"Don't." I warned Naomi, who'd started towards the girl. I jerked my head at Emily, and to my surprise, Naomi followed my lead, walking over to Emily's side. I looked back at Jillian. "I understand you're trying to protect your home. But we mean you no harm. Go home."

She took a step towards me and I raised my hands, releasing a wave of ice. Jillian flinched back, raising her hands to protect herself as the wave charged towards her, but I'd never intended on it hitting her. Instead, the wave rolled upwards in front of her, freezing and solidifying into a thick wall that prevented her from following us. She looked at it, startled, and I took that as my chance to follow Naomi and Emily into the trees.

**Naomi's POV**

We left Jillian and her village in our wake, moving as quickly as we dared through the trees. I didn't think that her people would follow us, even after finding out that Sera was Calderan - their number of weapons, basically confirmed by Jillian's silence, would make hunting us through the woods difficult. Their machetes were impressive, but long-range weapons would be more useful, and I suspected they only had the two.

Eventually, we felt it was safe to slow down. We'd been running for nearly an hour now, putting as much distance between us and the village as possible. "Okay, okay." I motioned for the girls to take a break. "I think we're safe."

"We had good timing with that escape." Emily cracked a smile, hands on her knees. She elbowed Sera playfully. "Nice handling of Jillian, by the way."

"Thanks." Sera smiled back at her. "How's your ankle?"

"Not so bad." Emily stretched it and I winced at the audible crack. "Swelling's gone down, and the rest did it good. I hate to say this because we took her hostage, but that Jillian knows how to wrap an injury."

"It's not like we hurt her. And she was close enough to find her way home." I pointed out. I did feel kinda bad for doing that to the girl, especially since she seemed to be a genuinely nice person, just trying to protect her home. But it was the only way to escape without anyone getting hurt. "Okay, now how far are we?"

"Well..." Emily looked around, using the giant stars in the sky to guide her. She turned a little, then pointed in the direction we'd been running. "If I remember the map correctly, and if I'm right about how far the village was from the path, we'd been taking...we need to continue going in this direction. We should hit a big river in a few hours I think, and that'll lead us into the city."

"That's a lot of 'ifs'." Sera pointed out. Emily rolled her eyes.

"I'm not wrong." She promised our friend, beginning to walk in the direction she'd pointed out. "I know exactly what I'm-ah!"

Suddenly, Emily disappeared from view as a sinkhole opened up beneath her. "Emily!" I shouted, running up to the sinkhole. It was fairly large - even if Emily hadn't stumbled upon it, Sera or I would have certainly - but more worryingly, it was incredibly deep, leading into what looked like a cave system.

"Are you okay? Say something!" Sera shouted. There was a moment where we heard nothing, then:

"Why does this keep happening to me?!" Emily's shout sounded more annoyed than hurt. I dropped my head in relief.

"Are you okay?" I called down. I couldn't see her, the cave below too dark.

"I'm fine. I landed in a mud puddle, but I'm not hurt." She replied. "I hate the environment."

"And environment definitely hates you." Sera laughed.

"I think I see an exit. Give me a minute!" Emily called up.

"No! Stay where you are!" I ordered. "You could get lost!"

"Yeah, sure." Emily's response was dismissive, distracted.

"I'm serious, Em! We'll find a way to pull you up!" I shouted before looking around. I glanced at Sera. "Maybe we can find a vine or something?"

"Uh, Naomi?" Emily called up, her tone no longer annoyed or distracted. "Don't pull me up. You guys need to come down here."

"Why? What's wrong?" I demanded, turning back to the sinkhole. She whistled up at us.

"You're _definitely_ going to want to see this."


	8. Separated Part 3: Caelus City

**Ben's POV**

I glanced at my watch, checking the time for the umpteenth time before resting my head back on the tree I was sitting up against. It was cold out, not as biting as it had been last night, but it wasn't as if we'd had a chance to warm up since. It hadn't been so noticeable when we'd been moving, but now that we were just sitting here, waiting, it was impossible to ignore.

We'd spent the entire night walking through the trees, using Noah's map, my compass, and torches made by Kira to keep us from getting lost. We'd finally arrived early in the morning, much later than we'd initially intended but before the first star could rise.

Below the edge of the treeline was a wide valley where the city stood. It looked like a small city from Earth, but instead of the glass-walled skyscrapers and skylines of massive towers that I was used to, it was mostly built of large townhouse-like buildings with a structure in the center that reminded me vaguely of a Gothic Victorian style palace (Naomi had taken an architecture class during her 1st year in college and I guess I picked something up while helping her study). There were no guards in sight, but we could see the Venusian natives beginning to start their days. That's when we realized one significant obstacle: we looked nothing like the Venusian people.

Every single one that we could see had blue and purple hair, and with Noah's brown locks and my and Kira's blonde ones, we would stand out like a sore thumb. Then Noah came up with a surprising plan.

"Well, I found this in Emily's bag." He'd announced, pulling a small container, similar to a contact lens case, out of his cousin's blue bag. He flipped it open to reveal a small computer-chip like device.

"Oh, is that one of the cyber cloaks." Kira had exclaimed, grinning when she saw it. I glanced at her.

"How do you know what a cyber cloak looks like?" Calla hadn't included it in their training because shed felt that there would definitely be a repeat of 'the Winter Formal of '15'. She'd refused to explain what is was but cited it as the main reason why giving the kids access to the cybermasks would probably be a bad idea. Kira had giggled softly at my question.

"Oh, that's between Em and I." She'd replied simply. I decided it was better not to ask and turned to Noah.

"There's two of them, right? They come in pairs." I'd questioned, having used them with the League before. He grimaced.

"Em probably has the other one. She likes messing around with tech like this when she's working on stuff, kinda like a stress ball." He'd waved his hand dismissively. "But I figure, I can use this one to do a little recon."

"Recon for what?" Kira had asked, sounding a little distracted. She was rubbing her shoulder with one hand, a concerned frown on her face.

"What's wrong?" I questioned immediately. She shook her head.

"Nothing. What's the recon for?" She repeated her question, focusing again.

"We need to know if any of the others beat us here or not." I'd explained. Noah nodded.

"Even if they aren't here already, getting a bit of a sense about the layout and maybe find out some information about where our parents are being held would be a good idea." He added. He glanced at me. "Em did an update on the cyber cloaks' invisibility option before we left, so why don't I use that to get past the guards, then blend in with the crowd and see what I can find?"

"Fine. We'll wait here." I'd decided after some thinking. "Be back here in two hours and no later, or we're coming in after you."

That had been one hour and fifty-two minutes ago and so far, there was no sign of him.

I glanced over at Kira, noticing that she'd been quiet for a long time. She was still sitting behind a fallen log, one knee pulled up to her chest, but she was staring distractedly into the trees behind us, scratching at her shoulder. "Is there something wrong with your shoulder?" I asked, frowning at her. She stopped scratching when I said that but didn't look away from the trees.

"No." She answered, though she sounded a little uncertain herself. When she didn't elaborate, I sat up to give her a once over.

"Kira?" I pressed her. Her lips twisted down into a frustrated scowl.

"We need to find Kameron." She said. I sighed.

"We will, Kira, but first-" I began. Her head snapped back at me and I stopped short, surprised by the mix of emotion in her eyes. I couldn't tell if it was worry or fear or anger, but it wasn't a look I expected to see on little Miss Sunshine.

"No, now." She insisted. "He's in trouble, we need to find him."

I licked my lips, reconsidered my words, then gently asked, "what sort of trouble?"

Her shoulders dropped. "I don't know." She admitted, worry bleeding into her voice. "But he's in trouble, and we need to find him. Right now."

"Okay, and how do you propose we do that?" I asked slowly. She faltered at my question. "Kira, I'm not dismissing your worries. If you say he's in trouble, I believe you. But we can't help him if we can't find him, and the only way I know how to find him is using Chase's chip. If you have a better idea, we'll talk about it, but right now, I think the best way to help Kameron is by continuing on the current plan."

She nodded, leaning back against the log. I could see her knee bouncing anxiously. "Okay." She mumbled softly, beginning to rub at her shoulder again.

"He'll be okay." I added softly. She looked at me, worry shining in her eyes. "He's tough, and for all we know Naomi or the others are with him. Whatever trouble he is in, he can handle it."

"I hope you're right." She sighed.

"I'm sure he is." Kira and I both jumped as Noah seemed to materialize before us. He smirked a little at our reactions. "Sorry."

"No, you're not." I grumbled, getting to my feet. "What did you find?"

"Are Kameron and the others here?" Kira added, leaning halfway across the log. He shook his head.

"Not yet, but to be fair, we made pretty decent time all things considered." He reminded her. She nodded though she seemed to deflate. "I did find out one important thing about Venusian fashion though."

"Venusian fashion?" I repeated, looking at him. He nodded.

"Mom always said it was important to pay attention to fashion trends. And apparently," he knelt down and started digging through his bag before pulling out two blue and purple wigs "wigs are in this season."

"Why are wigs part of their fashion?" Kira asked, raising her hands in time to catch the longer of the two wigs.

"Why do girls wear heels even though they hurt? Just because I pay attention to fashion doesn't mean I understand it. Here." He handed me the second wig. I pulled it on, adjusting it as he continued, pulling out a set of black cloaks from his bag. "I also grabbed these - our clothes might make us stand out a bit too much."

"Smart thinking." I commented. Kira nodded, patting the top of her long, purple and blue wig.

"Does it look alright?" She asked. I nodded and glanced at Noah. He smiled and tapped the cyber cloak chip, now resting against his neck, and his hair, clothes, and eyes suddenly transformed into those of a Venusians. "What about the eyes? Ours don't look right."

"Yeah, but you both have such pale eye colors that I think we'll be fine. Just don't go staring into strangers' eyes." He advised as we began to make our way down the hilltop and into the valley.

"So, what did you find out?" I questioned, buckling the front of the robe to hide the blue of my uniform.

"Not much. There's no sign of non-Venusian life at all down there, neither our team or the adults." Noah explained. "So, do we just wanna hang down there until the others show up, whenever that may be? If we hang out in the woods, they'll never find us."

"That is such a stupid plan." Kira grumbled, frustrated. I nodded.

"Well, given that this was initially supposed to be done by an invasion force of our world's strongest heroes, I very much agree. This is a very stupid plan." I announced. "But stupid plans seem to be our thing, so why not? Yeah, let's do that."

**Kira's POV**

We entered the city without much difficulty; no one seemed to notice three random 'Venusians' entering the city, or perhaps it was so common that it wasn't worth paying attention to. The city seemed awfully busy. Perhaps it was some sort of holiday or even weekend (I wasn't sure if they had weekends here, but perhaps they did). There were kids playing in the dirt streets, passing a flat, triangular item between them in a grassy area, and adults talking each other as they headed for a more populated part of the city. I watched as a group walked into a large, heavily decorated dome-like building.

"They're a religious people." Noah hummed to Ben and I as we passed by. "I heard some kids saying their parents were dragging them to something called 'Ishus' later and I saw a man in a long, gold cloak enter before everyone else."

Ben hummed in response as we walked past the building. "I think most people are heading down that way. Don't know why though." He commented, nodding towards a larger group of Venusians. We all started to follow after them, but I stopped when something suddenly hit the back of my legs. Turning, I found a triangular item at my feet. I picked it up just as one of the Venusian boys ran up to me.

"Here." I handed it back to him and he smiled.

"Hey, you want to play with us?" He asked. I glanced around, realizing that Ben and Noah were already gone. "Hello?"

"Sorry, I just lost my friends." I apologized. He nodded.

"I'm Julian." He introduced himself.

"Jaime." I lied. Sera's planet was known for everyone having similar sounding names and on the off chance that Venusia was the same, I didn't think my own name would be a good idea.

"Well, cool to meet you, Jaime." He replied, smiling at me charmingly. I rubbed my shoulder absently, smiling back. "You new around here?"

"I'm visiting from another village. My friends and I came here to look for work." I lied quickly. He nodded. "And I seem to have lost them."

"Maybe I can help you find them." He offered just as one of his friends, a girl with mostly blue hair, came running up. "Oh, Joni, this is Jaime. She's new in town."

"Cool. Nice bag." She complimented. I glanced at my bag, which was only partially hidden underneath my cloak. The Davenport industries logo was somewhat visible. "Where you get it?"

"An off-world trader." I replied. She looked at me expectantly. "I don't remember the name."

"Oh." She looked disappointed. "It's cool. Wish I had one like that. Mine broke not that long ago and I need to buy a new one."

I glanced at the bag, then at her. "I think I could maybe help you with that."

**Noah's POV**

"I don't see her." Ben sighed, looking through the crowd. "Or maybe I do, but I don't know. All these blue and purple haired people look alike."

"I think they should be called blue-nettes and purpl-ettes. You know, like brunettes, but for blue and purple hair" Kira declared, sliding in beside me. Her arms were hidden underneath her cloak, but it was clear that she was carrying something. "Sorry, I got distracted talking to some kids."

"Just stay close. I don't want to lose you in the crowd." Ben scolded her, though I could tell he was relieved. "What's in your arms?"

"Turn around." Kira told me. I did as I was asked.

"I swear, if that's an animal, we're not keeping it." I told her sternly as I felt her unzipping my bag.

"Look, I brought home a hurt squirrel one time, and if Emily and Kameron can have a pet in the penthouse, I don't see why I can't." She argued. "But relax, it's just my supplies."

"Why do you - where's your bag?" Ben questioned. I turned to see that Kira was indeed missing her bag and had just dumped all of her stuff into mine.

"Oh, I traded it to some kids." She explained. At my and Ben's exasperated looks, she smiled and held up three paper slips. "You see where everyone's heading? That's a food sharing market, kinda like a buffet. I traded my bag for three tickets and directions."

"You...bought us lunch?" I chuckled. I wasn't going to argue - the rations we'd brought hadn't been particularly appetizing - but it did seem odd. Kira shrugged.

"I guess, but since a lot of people are going to be there, I thought we might be able to ask around about our parents, see if anyone knows anything."

"We'll have to be careful, but...it's not a bad plan." Ben admitted, much to Kira's joy. "Nice job."

"Thank you. Follow me." She twisted around and began to lead us towards the market, a bit of a spring in her step.

"She seems less cranky." I commented, half under my breath. Ben glanced at me. "You have to admit, ever since I got back from my recon trip, she's been off."

"She's got it in her head that Kameron's in trouble. I think it's a twin thing." He explained back. I nodded thoughtfully.

"Think he's alright?" I asked. He pressed his lips together in a thin line.

"I hope so." He replied before shaking himself and catching up to Kira, who was quickly losing us in her haste towards the market. "Kiki, slow your roll a bit. Stay together."

**Xxx**

"This is surprisingly good." I admitted, taking another bite of my food. Sera had once made us all a traditional Calderan meal as a treat, a meal that had tasted like burnt asparagus, rubber, and spicy onions. It hadn't agreed with any of us, except for Charlotte who'd surprised us all and delighted Sera by asking for seconds, and I'd mostly expected the Venusian food to taste very much the same. That proved to be a false assumption that I wouldn't make twice. I didn't recognize any of the food on my plate, but it reminded me of cold vegetables, a fish of some sort, and, believe it or not, peanut butter. It was no match for my dad's cooking, but it was still better than anything Calla had cooked for us while I stayed with her, so that was something.

"That was good." Ben agreed, leaning back in his chair. He rested his head on his hand, thinking.

"What's up?" Kira questioned, still eating.

"Just wondering about the others." He scowled. "It's what, midday now? Past it? It was a three hour walk from where we split up, and it's been half a day since we should have arrived."

"We got lost." I pointed out. "I mean, we only got here a few hours ago ourselves, and we had the map and stuff."

"Yeah." He agreed, still thinking. "Still, they should be here soon."

"They'll likely come here." I reasoned. "Food cooking outside, a crowd of people? Even if they don't enter the city, they'll want to know what's going on and maybe even stock up on supplies. This does seem like the place they'd go to."

"Maybe." He agreed. He looked around. We were sitting at a table in the middle of the eating area, with Venusians sitting around us and chatting about their days and stuff. Listening in on them, you could hear a variety of topics, ranging from work (one complaining about getting extra work from someone named Jessalyn) to fashion (what was up with these people and wigs?). If you were looking to overhear town gossip, this seemed like the place. "Alright, I say we hang here for a while longer, see if we overhear anything that might be useful."

"Alright." Kira got up. "In that case, I will be right back. I'm going to go find the little lady's room. Thank god the Venusians have bladders." And with that final charming statement, she walked away to find the bathrooms. I turned to Ben once she was gone.

"We should grab more food, put it away for the others." He mentioned. "We have all the supplies with us - odds are, no one's eaten all day and won't eat until they get here."

"That's a good idea." I agreed. "We could use the smaller bags to carry it, so it doesn't spill into the rest of our supplies."

"Kam and the girls aren't gonna love that." He chuckled, pausing briefly, his eyes locking onto something behind me. I went to turn but he flicked his fingers, motioning for me to stay. "Don't."

I looked at him in confusion but didn't turn around. "What's up?"

"Guys wearing armor. Looks like they're guards on their lunch break. It's fine; I don't think they're here for us." He murmured quietly. I heard the chair behind me scrape across the ground. "So yeah, I don't think Kam's going to like it if you ruin his bag like that."

"The kid can suck it up." I replied easily, keeping my tone light. I went back to eating, trying not to tense up. My disguise was foolproof - at least, until the battery died, but I thought I had a few hours before that would be a problem - but Kira and Ben were wearing wigs. Not exactly the best disguise in the world. Thankfully, the guards paid us absolutely no attention, beginning to talk as they ate.

"Hey, think you can take my shift tomorrow? Journee's been nagging me to take Joel shopping. Kid needs new _skor_ again." One of them was saying.

"Can't. I got doubled up at the Court tomorrow." The other replied. The first groaned.

"You too? My _Polu_ , how long are they going to be pushing these extra hours on us?" He sighed. His friend chuckled darkly.

"Blame those _dumhuvie_ off-worlders. I'm half considering just stepping back tomorrow and letting the community have their way with them." He replied. I stopped, my spork-like utensil half up to my lips. Ben and I met each other's gaze.

"Yeah, well, Lord Jax and the Council's word is law." His friend grumbled.

"Doesn't mean we have to agree with him." The second sighed.

Were they talking about my parents? Or the others? What did they know about them?

Suddenly, Kira re-entered my line of sight, standing at the edge of the eating area. She didn't approach though, and one look at her pale face and a piece of paper clenched between her hands told me that something was wrong. "C'mon." I told Ben, keeping my tone low and leaving no room for argument. I got to my feet, grabbing my plate and utensils. Ben followed my lead, keeping care to not walk too fast or to do anything that would attract attention.

"They're going to-" Kira started the second we were within earshot, but Ben shook his head, silencing her, and taking her by the arm. He led her away from the eating area and into a quieter area.

"Alright, what's going on?" He asked her. She shakily handed us the piece of paper.

"They're going to kill her." She murmured. I looked at the paper, confused. It was a flyer, half in English and half in Venusian, but I understood the gist of it. It was advertising a protest at some place called 'The Caelus Court'.

"Calling for the death penalty for the Calderan warrior." Ben read. He looked at us. "The Calderan warrior."

"So, either that's Skylar, or Sera has seriously pissed off a lot of people in a very short amount of time." I muttered.

"I found it on a bulletin board near the bathrooms. There were a couple of people my parents' age talking about it." Kira explained, her words coming out in a panicked rush. "They were saying how she's a war criminal who came here with an attack force and how keeping her alive here is 'an insult to those who have given their lives to stop the Calderans'. They're going to kill her Ben, tomorrow."

"There were guards saying how they were considering letting the people do it." I glanced at Ben. "Skylar, and the rest of our parents, could be dead by tomorrow."

"Jesus." Ben breathed, shaking his head. "Alright. We need to move faster than we'd initially planned."

"The others aren't here yet." Kira reminded him, scratching her shoulder anxiously.

"We might not have time to wait." Ben decided. He let out a breath, then nodded. "Alright, we'll give them the rest of the day to show up, and if they don't, then we'll have to act without them. We'll use the protest tomorrow as a diversion to break the adults out."

"It won't be easy." I mentioned. Ben nodded.

"I know. But I don't think we have another option." He replied. "We break them out tomorrow, with or without the others."

**Ben's POV**

I spent the rest of the day hoping, praying that Naomi would step out of the trees. Or if not her, at least somebody from our team. Someone who could help us, because I didn't love the odds of the three of us being able to break the Elite Force out of this Caelus Court place they were being held. But as the day wore on, that hope began to wither. By time we had to retreat to the trees - Noah's cyber cloak was dying - and find somewhere to spend the night, it was clear that we were going to be on our own the next day. We made camp far enough away that Kira was able to make a fire without alerting the Venusians to our location. Noah had been practically buzzing with nerves and even though Kira's worries about Kameron had lessened ('I think he's okay' she'd said after a few hours, sounding relieved) and her nervous habit of scratching her shoulder had stopped, I could still tell she was anxious about the next day, so I'd offered to take the first watch in order to give them a chance to rest up.

"Please, Naomi." I murmured to myself, looking up at the dark sky. I needed her here, to help with all this. Neither option was great: either I wait for the others and risk letting the people kill Skylar, or I go in with two heroes with minimal experience, one of which only being fifteen years old, and try to rescue them ourselves with no backup and no way to even tell the others our plan. I was between a rock and a hard place, and without the others here, without Naomi here, that wasn't going to change. But by time the first of the planet's large stars began to rise on the horizon, there was still no sign of the others.

And so, we found ourselves wading through the angry crowds in the morning, Noah sporting a new wig and cloak stolen by Kira prior to the protest. The atmosphere of the Caelus Court - a large courtyard in front of a heavily protected building near the tree line at the far North end of the city - was tense and hateful, people chanting 'Kill the Calderan' in unison with each other.

"My god." Kira shrank back against me as we were jostled by the crowd we were trying to get through. "They really hate her."

"She's a warrior from an enemy planet." I murmured regretfully.

"They called them here though. I thought they wanted peace." Noah ground out somewhere behind me. I couldn't see him – he was using the last of the cyber cloak's battery to keep him invisible – but I could just picture the angry look on his face.

"Clearly, that's not what they intended." I replied. "Let's just focus on getting the team out, then we can deal with why they were brought here."

I began to push through the crowd vigorously, Kira falling in behind me so she wouldn't get swept away by the crowd. We eventually reached the front, where the guards were clearly struggling to keep the people at bay. While that was a little scary when you thought about that many people wanting Skylar dead, it was exactly what we were relying on.

"Kira, you ready?" I glanced back at the girl. She nodded and ducked her head, focusing for a moment. Before long, I heard the angry shouts turn into cries of surprise as the trees at the edge of the city burst into flames.

The guards were momentarily distracted, and that's all the crowd needed to surge forward, to try and charge into the building the moment the guards lowered their defenses. We lunged forward with them, but unlike the others, we had an invisible man on our side. When the guards went to push the protesters back, Noah sped into them, knocking them to the ground. The protesters fought their way forward, getting the attention of the guards, while Kira and Noah caused more distractions with her fire and his unseen attacks.

Amidst all the chaos, Kira, Noah, and I managed to sneak past distracted guards and into the massive building. "In here." I felt a hand grab my arm, then I was pulled through the closest door. Once inside, I realized it was some kind of file room. Noah flickered back into visibility before us.

"That's the last of the battery." He announced. I nodded.

"Alright, step one's over. Step two: find the adults." I decided. I looked around. "They have to have a computer system here, right? I don't suppose any of you know how to hack into that kind of stuff?"

"My great-uncle Douglas taught me basic hacking stuff. I'm no tech expert, but I can make do. Hopefully." Noah replied.

"Hopefully is better than knocking down doors until we find them." I muttered. "Alright, computer room, any ideas on where we'd find it?"

"Well..." Kira frowned, raising her hands towards the door. "Computers generate a lot of heat, right?"

Noah and I exchanged looks. "I guess?" Noah shrugged. Kira nodded.

"We follow the heat." She decided. I nodded.

"Alright. Stay close." I ordered. I slowly cracked open the door and looked outside. The hallway was empty, the rest of the guards having gone outside to deal with the protesters. "Follow me."

I carefully led them through the hall, keeping pace with Kira who was using her powers to try and track the biggest source of heat. It was a trick that Kaz had used on a mission we'd been on before, so I knew it was reliable, but also required a lot of concentration to give an accurate reading.

Unfortunately, the moment we reached the end of the corridor, I knew she was going to lose it.

"It's close. Left side. I can tell." She hissed to me. I nodded, looking around the corner.

"Yeah, I'm guessing it's the room with two guards in front of it." I sighed. I glanced at Noah, then at Kira. "Alright, Kira, you and I will handle the guards, then keep watch. Noah, focus on getting to that computer and find where they're keeping the adults. Got it?" They both nodded in understanding. "Alright, go!"

I lunged forward first, using my strength to propel myself from the ground into the air. I tackled the nearest guard to the ground before he could raise his weapon, and I landed a heavy punch to his jaw. I heard the other guard shout in surprise and saw, out of the corner of my eye, him raise his spear like a blaster, but Kira took care of it before he could. She sent a large ball of fire, about the size of a baseball, towards him, forcing him to duck in order to avoid being burnt. I hit the guard underneath me again and stood up to help Kira, but instead ended up watching as she hit the guard hard enough to knock him backwards. He hit the heavy metal door and sunk to the floor, unconscious.

"Oops." Kira looked at him wide-eyed, then at me. "I didn't mean to hit him that hard."

I couldn't help but chuckle at her reaction. "You did good, kid."

"Nice job." Noah's voice died in the wind as he sped past us, into the computer room. We followed him in and found him standing over a high-tech computer consol. He already had it activated and was looking through the complicated writing.

"Uh, it's not in English. I thought most planets used English now?" He questioned. Kira shook her head.

"Most planets use one of five basic languages in order to keep things simple, but only two of them are from Earth." She reminded him. She looked over the writing with a frown. "This doesn't look like Mandarin either though."

"Can you do it or not?" I questioned as I dragged the two unconscious guards into the room. If he couldn't get into the security system, I had a back up plan that involved searching the building, but it carried much more risk and could take a lot longer. I nodded at what I figured was a closet. "Kira, the door?"

"Yeah." She nodded quickly, rushing to open it for me.

"I think so. Just give me a minute." Noah replied. He began typing at the computer at high speed, pausing every now and then to try and figure out what the symbols meant while Kira helped me lock the guards in the closet. She went to help Noah with the computer, while I kept watch on the door.

"Ah-ha!" Noah exclaimed a few minutes later.

"What happened?" I called over my shoulder.

"Well, I can't read the writing, but I think I found the map of the building. And this cell area is three times as guarded as the rest of them." He announced. I nodded.

"That'll be where they're holding them." I declared. I glanced over my shoulder. "C'mon, let's go."

I turned and started down the hall just as another set of guards appeared, stepping into the corridor. "You really want to do this?" I questioned, beginning to charge at them.

Before I could even reach them though, one of the guards raised some sort of remote and pressed a button on the side of it. The moment he pushed down on that button, a high-pitched scream filled my head, drowning out everything else in the room.

I hit my knees in agony, my hands clutching at my head, unable to so much as move with the scream bouncing around my head. Vaguely, I was aware of Noah and Kira also screaming and the guards closing in on us. I was just barely able to raise my head in time to see one of the guards raise his weapon and bring it down towards me.

**Noah's POV**

I opened my eyes to the sideways view of a tiled floor and the remnants of a sonic, high-pitched scream still echoing in my head. I couldn't stop the high-pitched whine that escaped my lips as I rolled onto my stomach and slowly pushed myself onto my knees. To my left, Kira was one step ahead of me, already sitting on her knees with glowing cuffs encircling her wrists, while Ben, on my right, was just starting to wake up himself. We were all sitting in a dark room, with guards standing in front of the doors behind us.

As I started to get up, I felt an odd pain in my arm. Looking, I was shocked to see a needle mark in the crook of my elbow. "What did they give me?" I groaned. Kira shook her head.

"Took a blood sample. Couldn't stop them." She muttered. I scowled and pulled at my own restraints, feeling them vibrate in response. I could tell immediately that they were like our power-blocking cuffs back home; my speed was gone, as were Kira's fire and Ben's strength.

"Earth natives." Another voice hummed. I looked up to see two Venusians, a man and a woman, in golden clothes enter the room while trailed by a number of guards. "Like the others. I take it you're here for a botched rescue?" The woman questioned.

Kira opened her mouth to reply, but Ben cut her off. "Don't." He groaned, pushing himself up on shaky arms. "Don't."

"Who are you?" The Venusian man questioned, ignoring Ben. This time, Kira didn't make any attempt to speak, listening to Ben. "Why are you here?"

Ben and I sat up properly, copying Kira's position in solidarity. The woman examined us, then smiled to herself before turning to her partner. "Has your Earth contact reported in yet?"

He glanced at us, then slowly raised his chin. "Not yet." He answered cautiously. He turned to address us. "I take it you have something to do with Miss Krane's disappearance."

I had to stop myself from looking at Noah and Kira in surprise. We'd suspected that Lexi's benefactors had had something to do with our parents' disappearance, but I hadn't suspected it would be so easy to confirm it.

"I repeat my question," this time, the woman pulled out a glowing silver blade and held it under Kira's throat. "Who are you?"

Before any of us could decide whether or not to give her an answer, another Venusian woman in a long, black apron entered the room. "Lady Jaya, Lord Jax." She greeted with a nod. "We have the results of the prisoner's blood. Two of them are indeed familial matches to the other prisoners.

 _Other prisoners_ echoed in my mind. "I see. Thank you." Jax nodded at the Venusian, who nodded and left.

Ben let out a long, audible sigh. "My name is Aftershock, I'm a member of the New League of Heroes of Earth." He announced, glaring at the two Venusian leaders. "We have come for the Elite Force. Believe me, we are the best-case scenario, and you won't get another chance to hand them over so easily. If you do not release me, my companions, and the Elite Force immediately and allow us to leave in peace, the NLH will send an elite invasion force to retrieve us. If that means fighting and beating you, they will. We take care of our own."

Jax looked at Ben scrutinizingly. "Is that so?"

"It is." Ben didn't even blink. "On the other hand, if you let us go free, without any trouble, we'll leave you in peace. It's your choice, but I wouldn't advise incurring the wrath of the greatest superhero organization across the universe."

I held my breath as Jaya lowered herself so that she was crouching in front of him, her blade still resting under his chin. "I do not fear the New League of Heroes." She told him, smiling arrogantly. She raised her chin upwards to address the guards behind us. "Search the city and the surrounding areas. They wouldn't have come alone. Kill anyone you find."

"No!" I lunged at her, only to be pulled back by two guards. Jaya rolled her eyes at my outburst and stood up.

"Should we kill them?" She asked Jax, who shook his head.

"They might be useful to us." He decided. He waved over a few more guards. "Take them away."

"You'll regret this!" Ben growled as we were dragged to our feet and pulled away. They roughly pushed us down a couple of hallways until we reached a guarded metal door. They opened it up, revealing a set of stairs leading into a dark room. They shoved Ben in first, the older boy barely keeping himself from falling down the stairs, and just barely being able to keep Kira from face-planting when they shoved her in next. They pushed me in next and unfortunately, with so many on the stairs already, my hands bound, and the shove not exactly being gentle, I stumbled and fell. Ben tried to grab me like he did Kira, but I weighed a little more than the 5'4 girl and we both ended up tumbling onto the cold, hard ground at the base of the stairs.

Kira came rushing down the stairs after us, but when a voice called "Noah?", it wasn't hers that spoke.

I looked up instantly, having not heard that voice for months. "Mom?"


	9. The Rocky Road to Venusia

_**SEPTEMBER 2038** _

**Chase's POV**

"No, you're definitely cheating." Dani was mid-accusation when I walked out of the main deck and into the lounge area on the viewing deck. She, along with most of the others, were in the booth near the large viewing window playing Yahtzee. Oliver was the only one absent, having just relieved me from a six-hour-long shift of flying the ship.

"You can't cheat at Yahtzee, Dani." Bree pointed out, rolling her eyes as she handed the dice to Jaden. She glanced over at me as I approached the table. "Do you want to play? We're only one round in, so you can just go twice."

"Yeah, sure. Why not?" I shrugged, not having planned on going to bed just yet. Kaz slid over to give me room. "We never play at home."

Jaden smirked, rolling the dice. "CeeCee still hates the game?"

"Yeah. One day, she is going to tell me the story behind that, I swear." I replied, shaking my head. He chucked, glancing at the dice before choosing a few to save. "Emmy loves it though. You know she has a secret game under her bed? She, Charlotte, and their friend Ava play when Calla's not home."

"Are you serious?" Kaz laughed out loud, eyes bright with amusement. "That's awesome. The biggest 'secret' either of the twins have is Kam's so-called secret love of romance novels."

"Of course it is." Skylar smiled, glancing at me. "It's her birthday today, right? Emily?"

I nodded, glancing at my Davenwatch, which was still set to Earth time. "Seventeen-years-old as of 3 hours and 16 minutes ago."

"I'm sorry you had to miss it." Bree gave me a sympathetic smile. Seraphina, Kameron, and Kira were all summer babies, o we should return home their birthdays pass, but Emily, Noah, and Justine would all have celebrated theirs while we were gone. "I'm sure Calla will do something special."

"I know, and we already talked about how to make it up to her." I replied. "There's a pet-friendly student dorm in Cambridge. It's more expensive than the regular student dorms, but Calla and I are going to splurge and get a suite there so she can take Helix with her."

"Oh, she'll love that." Dani grinned. "She's about as attached to that dog as Kameron is to Josh."

Kaz suddenly laughed. "Oh, I totally forgot about Josh. How do you think Calla is going to react when she realizes that Josh isn't a guinea pig?"

I looked at him, confused. "He's not?" I asked.

Kaz shook his head. "Josh is a tarantula, man."

I stared at him for a long moment. "I am not responsible if my wife kills you." I declared, just as the ship suddenly shuddered violently, as if we'd hit something hard.

"What the hell was that?" Bree questioned, bracing herself against the table.

Skylar slid out of her seat, rushing towards the main deck. "Oliver?" She called as we all followed her. "What was that?"

"I don't know!" Oliver shouted as we ran onto the main deck. He was at the helm, frantically pressing buttons as the ship rattled again. "I think we were just shot."

"By who? We're in the middle of deep space, Oliver. No one is shooting at us." Kaz argued as I slid past him in order to get a better view at the scanner on the left of the helm's controls.

"Someone is shooting at us." I confirmed. Kaz's eyebrows raised in surprise.

"I stand corrected. I apologize." He offered. Oliver nodded.

"Thank you, I appreciate that." He replied calmly. Bree rolled her eyes.

"Who's shooting at us?" She demanded, looking at me.

"No idea. Move." Oliver didn't have to be told twice, sliding out of his chair the moment I spoke so that I could take control of the ship. I gripped one of the control sticks in my right hand, the left swiping through the scanners to try and determine exactly what our situation was. Behind me, the others were all abuzz, asking questions of both Oliver and I to try and figure out the situation. I tuned them out, taking in all that the scanners were telling me.

"Alright." I cleared my throat, getting their attention. "Four unidentified ships on our rear, two on the left and two on the right. Skylar," the Calderan woman straightened up when I said her name, "the defense systems are in the stern. Kaz, Dani, turrets." All three of them ran off to their assigned stations. "Jaden, you're on comms. Everyone else, sit down, strap in, and shut up. I need to focus."

It was pretty blunt, but I didn't have time to be nice. Thankfully, the others all had the sense to follow my orders without argument.

 _"Ready."_ Skylar announced a few moments later as I pulled on a headset.

 _"I see them."_ Dani added. _"Cool ships."_

"Identifiable?"Jaden questioned from his seat across the room. I could just make out the window he'd pulled up on his screen; it looked like the Coalition's intergalactic database of ships.

 _"They're...dark? I don't know. Sorry, Jay."_ Dani apologized.

 _"Hey, Dee. First to hit their target gets to pick next year's vacation spot?"_ Kaz suggested. I rolled my eyes, using one hand to bring the radar up to eye level. I could see the four ships closing in on us. They were all smaller than our ship, likely single-man crafts, but they were wicked fast.

"Skylar, defenses?" I demanded as I pulled up on the controls, increasing our altitude in hopes of getting out of their immediate range of fire. If I could get Dani and Kaz into positions where they had clear lines of fire, we might be able to get rid of them.

 _"Front shielding is at 89%, rear shields are at 67%."_ Skylar announced just as another blast shook the ship. _"Make that 56%."_

"Alright," I paused for a second, mentally calculating the power of the ships' blasts, "pull power from the front shields – they're firing on us from behind. But just take what you need - I don't want the front shielding to drop below 60, you hear me?"

 _"Copy that."_ Skylar confirmed. _"Won't last long if we can't take these guys out quick though."_

 _"You mean like this?"_ Kaz called, sounding triumphant for a second. Then, with an annoyed curse, he added, _"Never mind; that did not go as planned."_

"What happened?" Bree questioned from where she and Oliver were seated, both looking particularly frustrated by the fact that the most they were able to do to help was put on headsets and listen in on the others.

" _They're shielded. It's gonna take more than single shots to take 'em out."_ Kaz explained, his voice strained, the sound of him and Dani firing in the background.

"Ships that size don't typically have shielding." Oliver mentioned, sounding surprised.

"I bet you're glad Douglas suggested the weapons systems now." Bree commented. I didn't have a chance to voice my agreement as I swerved and dodged with the ship, trying to avoid the blasts from the ships, but they had the advantage of numbers.

"Guys!" I shouted, gritting my teeth as we took another hit.

 _"Front at 61%, rear at 62%."_ Skylar warned. I cursed.

"Take reserve power from the frontal weapon systems." I told her, not having many other options for her. "Dani, Kaz, stop screwing around and get rid of them now."

 _"Hey, do you want to switch places?"_ Dani retorted before suddenly letting out a delighted laugh. _"Ha! Finally!"_

"You shot one down?" Oliver asked hopefully, grinning.

 _"Nope, but I did break through the shielding."_ She exclaimed.

 _"And now I'm gonna finish him off."_ Kaz added.

 _"Not if I do it first."_ Dani argued. A moment passed, and suddenly the entire ship shook from the force of a violent explosion. It was immediately followed by something heavy hitting us from behind. I didn't know what it was exactly, but it was enough to knock us off our current trajectory, despite my efforts to stay on track. The lights on the deck began to flash red, warning of serious damage having been done to the ship, and an alarm began to echo through the entire ship.

"If one of you missed and hit our own ship..." I warned. For a number of reasons it should have been physically impossible for them to do that, but Dani and Kaz had proven many times in the past that anything was possible for them if it were chaotic enough, so who knows?

 _"We didn't miss!"_ Kaz protested.

 _"Yeah, but we did make the enemy ship explode."_ Dani added, tone sounding unexpectedly concerned by what should have been a triumph.

"And why is that a bad thing?" Oliver questioned.

 _"Because the explosion threw the other ship into us. It crashed through our shields, Chase."_ Skylar warned. I glanced over at Jaden, craning my neck to try and see his screens from here. Mine told of damage and warned against continuing this space battle, but his would have the specific details on how badly we were hurt.

"Jaden?" I called, turning my attention back to the sky. One of the remaining ships had flown ahead and began targeting us from the front. Unfortunately, this ship was never meant to be a warship and Skylar had taken what was left of the power for the frontal weapons.

"Severe damage to the left engine and several internal functions." Jaden announced. "Not to mention, the left side's shielding is completely done."

 _"If we take a hit there..."_ Skylar trailed off as I continued to try and dodge the incoming attacks. With that kind of damage and only one of the attackers out of the picture, there was no way we were going to walk away the victors of this fight.

"Understood. Jaden?" I glanced over at him. "Is the hyperdrive operational?"

"It is." He confirmed after a moment. I nodded.

"Alright. If you're not strapped in, I highly recommend it." I instructed, hitting a button on the right control stick, then pulling back on both of them. "Brace yourselves!" I shouted before punching both control sticks forward, sending us hurtling into uncharted space.

**Kaz's POV**

I let out a breath as the ship finally slowed to what felt like a normal speed. The sound of the enemy firing on us were long gone, as were the sounds of the ship's alarms. The lights in the turret were still that ominous red, but without the screaming alarms, they seemed to lose some of their edge.

I took a moment to steady my breathing, letting my stomach settle a little – I'd never liked the hyperdrive because of the way it made my stomach flip, though I supposed we didn't really have a choice in using it to escape the attackers – then adjusted my headset. "Is everyone alright?" I asked, flicking the switch for the microphone. I frowned, confused when I didn't even hear static come through the headset. "Dee? Oliver? Anyone?"

The line stayed dead. I pulled of my headset, concerned, and quickly slid down the ladder from the turret into the viewing deck. To my relief, Dani was already below, one hand still hanging onto a rung of her ladder. "Are you alright?" She demanded, wide eyes scanning me for injury. I nodded and gestured at her. "I'm okay. My comms are dead though."

"I turned off the comm system." Chase announced, suddenly appearing behind us. Dani and both jumped, neither of us having seen him in the dim light.

"Jesus!" I swore, my heart beating out of my chest. "Don't sneak up on that people like that, man!"

"Sorry." He replied, pulling out a flashlight. He flipped it on, shining the beam onto the floor. "Better?"

"Marginally." Dani replied. "Why'd you turn off the comms?"

"We don't know how much damage we took. I want everything unnecessary off until we figure out how screwed we are." He explained. Dani and I exchanged looks.

"Sorry about that." "Our bad." We both apologized at once. Chase waved it off.

"Not your fault." He assured us before nodding further down the hall. "I'm gonna go check out the engine, see how badly things are damaged. I'll meet you on the main deck in a few."

He didn't wait for our response, too focused on his task. I turned to Dani and gestured towards the direction Chase had come in. "After you," I offered. She smiled and rolled her eyes before beginning to lead us back to the main deck. "So, just to be sure we're on the same page, I did win, right?"

"What?" Her brow furrowed, confused. "No, I won. I shot him down."

"I'm fairly certain it was my shot that blew him up." I argued. She shook her head.

"No, it was mine." She insisted. I narrowed my eyes at her, still thinking I was right. "Okay, I wanted to go to Paris, where did you want to go?"

"Disneyland." I replied, surprised she hadn't been expecting that. She gave me a loving, exasperated look. "It's the last summer before the kids start their superhero training, Dee. I want to make it special."

"By going to Disneyland?" She asked, laughing a little.

"We go to Paris every four years." I pointed out. She shrugged.

"Well, if you didn't want me to love it so much, you should have proposed to me on Splash Mountain instead." She pointed out. I half-shrugged; she had a point. "I think there's a Disneyland in Paris."

"Deal." I grinned as we walked onto the main deck. Bree was in the pilot's seat now, keeping her eyes straight ahead while Jaden looked over the scanners. Oliver and Skylar were over at the comms station.

"Hey," I greeted as Dani and I walked over to them. "What're you doing?"

"Chase didn't have time to put coordinates into the hyperdrive, so we're trying to figure out where we ended up." Oliver explained.

"And where we are is light-years off course." Skylar muttered.

"How bad is that?" Dani questioned, her tone serious. Skylar sighed.

"I know it was his only choice, but..." She muttered before leaning back in the chair and looking up at us. "The hyperdrive was already installed in the ship, but we were never going to use it."

"Because it drains too much in fuel." I nodded, remembering how relieved I'd been when Chase had explained that at the start of the trip - I really hated hyperdrives. Skylar nodded.

"So, we're light-years off course with a lot less fuel than we'd originally planned." She confirmed.

"With a severely damaged engine and life support system." Chase announced, stalking back in.

"The life support is damaged?" That distracted Bree from flying. Chase nodded solemnly. "But we need that to breathe."

"Calla installed a back-up system as a precaution. Rightly so, apparently." He explained. "But it's not strong enough to fully replace the original – it'll only last twelve hours. The engine won't even last half that, which, by the way, we're gonna have to shut off in order to repair."

"So, we have to land." Jaden sighed. He looked at Skylar. "And you just said our fuel wouldn't last."

"How off course are we?" Chase questioned. Skylar shook her head.

"If we don't use the hyperdrive, it'll delay our arrival by three weeks, which we thankfully have just enough supplies for." She replied. "If we do use the hyperdrive, we can make it there in the same amount of time, but we risk running out of fuel mid flight. And if that happens..."

The 'we're screwed' went unsaid, but we all knew it. "Alright." Chase rubbed his forehead. "Alright, either way we have to land for repairs."

"And then?" Bree pushed. Chase looked at us.

"And then we'll vote on whether or not we risk the hyperdrive. Something like this should be a group decision." He assured her. We all exchanged looks.

"So, where are we supposed to land?" I asked the obvious question. "I don't see any planets out the window."

"There's a planet, about five hours from here." Oliver announced, looking over the star charts Skylar had pulled up. "Benzia?"

"Uninhabited, but oxygen levels are pretty close to Earth's." Skylar mentioned. Chase nodded.

"Let's just hope the engine lasts long enough for us to make it there." He glanced at his sister. "Want me to take over?"

"No, I'm more refreshed than you." She offered him a smile. "I've got it."

"Okay, now that we've got a plan, can we talk about what all that was?" I questioned. "Who were those guys?"

We all exchanged looks. None of us had an answer, but we all knew now that this trip was not going to be as simple as we'd initially thought.

**Chase's POV**

"Pirates, really, Oliver?" I heard Bree laugh as she zipped between where Oliver was working on the engine and where I was sitting at the life support control system. The wiring between the life support systems and their power source had been damaged beyond repair, so I was trying to reroute how they took the power. If I couldn't get it, we'd risk them malfunctioning mid-flight, but I thought I finally had a handle on it.

"Pirates?" I echoed my sister, shaking my head. "That's your theory?"

"Do you know how many patients we got this year alone because their ships were attacked by pirates?" Oliver argued. "Like, 8."

"That doesn't sound like a lot." Bree pointed out.

"It is for pirate attacks." Oliver informed her. "It's like, twice the intergalactic average, and-huh." There was a pause. "Chase?"

"Yeah?" I got up when I heard his tone. "What's wrong?"

"How much fuel did you say we had left?" He questioned.

"76%." I replied, frowning.

"That's what I thought you said. We might have a problem, then." He announced. "We're down to 73%."

"That's impossible." I told him, walking over. He wordlessly handed me the tablet with the information on it. I studied it for a moment - it did say 73% now, though I was sure it'd been 3% higher before – and then jogged up the platform into the ship, through the cargo bay and into the engine room. My fears were immediately confirmed. "Shit."

The massive engine (the part that was only accessible from the inside anyway) filled up most of the room, leaving just about a 2-foot wide path from one end of the room to the other, a path that was now slick with a thin layer of translucent, amber liquid: fuel.

"What's...oh. That's not good." Oliver realized, he and Bree coming up behind me.

"What's going on?" My sister asked, unable to see past us with the doorway being as narrow as it was.

"There's a leak in the fuel tank." I explained. Her face paled when she realized the implications. "Bree, you go let the others know and _walk, don't run._ The last thing we need is your speed kicking up sparks. Oliver and I will handle the spill."

"Okay..." She didn't move at first. "Are we going to have enough fuel to finish the trip?"

"Bree, go." I encouraged. She nodded and didn't delay any longer, slowly making her way out of the ship.

"Do we have enough fuel?" Oliver prompted. I glanced at him, the calculations already spinning around my head.

"Let's focus on dealing with the spill." I told him. "Then we'll see."

**Kaz's POV**

"I think it was pirates." I nodded to myself, sure that I was right. The others all exchanged amused looks. Jaden, Dani, Skylar, and I were standing around a rock formation fairly close to where we'd landed while we waited for Oliver, Bree, and Chase to finish working on the ship. We would have offered to help, but frankly, we'd probably just be in the way. "Oh, c'mon, Oliver's always talking about the pirate attacks in space."

"I'm still struggling to believe that there are actual space pirates." Jaden chuckled to himself. Skylar rolled her eyes.

"It just means someone who attacks and invades other ships. No eye patches or hooked hands or whatever you're picturing." She told him before turning to me. "And Oliver talks about pirate attacks for weeks after they happen. I don't know why you two find them so fascinating..."

"Because pirates." I insisted. "I'm serious."

"We know." Skylar and Jaden said in unison.

"Hang on, I think he might have a point." Dani held her hand out to stop them, smirking a little. She glanced over as Bree jogged over to us. "Hey, the boys done fixing the ship yet? Can we go?"

"No. We have a problem." She announced.

"We know. We were attacked, possibly by pirates." I replied easily. She pointedly ignored me.

"What's wrong, Bree?" Jaden asked, crossing his arms, and looking at her, his brow furrowed.

"The fuel tank is leaking." She announced. Instantly, the relaxed atmosphere evaporated.

"Oh no." Dani glanced at me before looking at Bree. "How screwed are we?"

"I...don't know." She admitted. "But I suspect we won't be risking that hyperdrive now."

"So that's three more weeks before we land on Venusia." Skylar sighed. Jaden grimaced, but nodded.

"Three weeks, it's not the end of the world. The kids will understand why we're a little late." He reasoned, though he sounded as disappointed as the rest of us felt. He glanced back at Bree. "I think we'll get back after Noah's exams though. You think CeeCee will be okay with him moving in with her for a week or so before we get back?"

Bree nodded, but Skylar sighed. "It's not the kids I'm worried about. Sera could benefit from spending time with kids her age. But…" a pained expression crossed her face, "the longer it takes us to get to Venusia, the longer the war will go on and the more people that will die."

I sighed, not knowing what to say to that. I'd known that there'd been a war on Caldera and I, of course, had been worried about Oliver, Skylar, and Sera, but any time we talked, they made it sounds like it was a distant thing and that they were okay. Like it was happening on the other side of the planet and white it was sad and awful, they were okay. It was too easy to pretend that they hadn't been in the thick of it, watching the people they care about die.

"Skylar, I'm sorry." Jaden apologized to the Calderan, eyes sad. She nodded and licked her lips, clenching her fists. She took a deep breath, then turned to Bree.

"Is there anything the boys need? I'd like to get off this planet ASAP." She asked, her tone too even, too controlled. Bree hesitated, obviously not wanting to say no.

"Well, they kicked me out, but you can..." The speedster suddenly trailed off, eyes lifting to the sky. With a sharp breath, she pointed past Skylar at the pale green sky. "What is that?"

I followed her gaze, turning. For a moment, I couldn't see what she was talking about - sure, the sky was a weird color and there were a couple of birds flying in the distance, but that wasn't anything to get worked up about. Then, I realized; those weren't birds.

"Ships!" Skylar called unnecessarily as the ships sped toward us, slowing as they approached. "Dani, go get Chase and Oliver."

"Got it." Dani nodded, about to run off towards our ship when suddenly, the bottoms of both ships, now hovering in front of us, slid open. Out pour a dozen or so aliens, pale-skinned with blue or purple hair, carrying shields and spears.

I didn't recognize them, but Skylar straightened up immediately. "Venusians." She explained quickly to the rest of us before raising her hands slowly. "Hello there! We're the Elite-"

Skylar cut herself off, ducking just in time to avoid getting shot in the head by a blast coming from one of the Venusian's spears, weapons I did not even know could shoot until they all started shooting at us. We all immediately ducked for cover, using the outcropping rocks to shield us from the incoming series of blasts.

"We're here for the peace treaty!" Skylar shouted. If the Venusians heard her, they certainly gave no indication, choosing to instead continue showering us in waves of plasma blasts.

"Why are they attacking?" Bree demanded, trying to get a good view of the enemy without making herself too much of a target. "We're trying to stop the war!"

"I don't think they care, honey." Jaden commented, sitting on the ground next to her. His head was ducked as he pulled a small blaster out of an ankle holster I did not even know he had.

"Calla gave you a new toy?" Dani called from where the two of us were hiding behind another rock. Jaden chuckled, clicking off the safety.

"She didn't completely trust that things were going to go smoothly. Guess she was right." He called back before twisting around the rock, firing a couple of quick shots at the Venusians. The two blasts, light blue balls of energy, flew towards the Venusians. At first I thought they were going to miss - Jaden didn't have time to aim properly and as such, his shots went wide - but to my surprise, the blasts changed trajectory midair, locking onto two of the Venusians and slamming straight into their shields. "Thank you, CeeCee."

"This is going to put a real damper on the peace negotiations." Dani commented, craning her neck to try and get a better look. I chuckled, crouching partially above her.

"I go high, you go low?" I suggested. She smirked.

"Let's go." She replied, pushing herself off the ground, swinging her arm back, and throwing a ball of electricity along the ground towards the Venusians like a bowling ball. I flew into the air and sent a wave of fire towards the nearest three Venusians. I didn't manage to really scorch any of the Venusians, but I did get them to stop shooting for a moment and to back off. We were outnumbered almost 2-to-1, so getting them on the defensive instead of the offensive was the best play.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see one of the important to remember that we Venusians surrounded by a blurry circle, most likely Bree speeding around the Venusian, while Jaden was still shooting from his spot behind the rock. Meanwhile, despite the shooting, Skylar had managed to get close enough to one of the Venusians to grab hold of his spear, and the two were currently grappling over it.

"Who are these guys?" Dani demanded, managing to hit one of the Venusians right in the chest, knocking him to the ground. But before she could really knock him out, two more took his place, targeting her. She dropped behind one of the outcropping rocks, then went to send another ball of electricity at the Venusians. She stopped mid-throw though. "Kaz!" She called, pointing. Following her gaze, I saw another Venusian ship approaching, this time from the other direction, and heading for our ship.

"Chase! Oliver!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, sending another wave of fire towards the Venusians, who were still shooting at us. Our ship wasn't that far, but there was no way they could hear me from there, and no way that I could reach them to warn them, even as Venusian fighters descended from the bottom of the newest ship.

"Kaz!" Dani shouted again, tone hardening, and I ducked instinctively. A shot went over my head, missing me by inches, and I was forced to turn my attention back to fight in front of me and away from the newest batch of enemies.

**Chase's POV**

"Well, we aren't going to be able to use the hyperdrive now." I grumbled angrily, shaking my head. The fuel tank had been an easy enough fix, thankfully not being too badly damaged, but it had already lost a significant amount of fuel before we could.

"How screwed are we?" Oliver asked, pausing in wiping up the fuel spill to glance over his shoulder at a muffled sound coming from outside, most likely Kaz, by the sounds of it. He was probably messing around, trying to pass the time until we were finished. Thankfully, that was going to be really soon. Oliver had managed to clean most of the spill in the time that it'd taken me to fix the fuel tank, but we were still going to need to wash it down first. The last thing we wanted was a fire in here.

"I don't want to jinx it...but if nothing else goes wrong, we'll still make it. Three weeks late, but we'll get there." I stood up as the sound from outside got louder, transforming from muffled bangs to something almost familiar. "What are they doing out there?"

"It's just Kaz and Dee." Oliver dismissed it. I shook my head.

"No, it's not." It sounded a bit like the sound of their blasts, but there was something else there. Oliver stood up, frowning, but with me between him and the door, it wasn't like he could do anything. "I'm gonna go check it out."

I squeezed out of the engine room and started towards the open cargo door but stopped short when I saw what was going on in the distance. It looked like the others were engaged in a firefight of some kind, facing off against at least a dozen enemy combatants. I could hear the sound of the battle more clearly now and realized that the weapons the enemies were using - sticks with blaster options, apparently - sounded almost exactly like the sound of Kaz's fireballs. More pressing, however, was the issue of the half a dozen blue-haired attackers approaching the ship. I ducked instinctively as they began to fire into the ship, and backed towards the engine room, throwing my shield up.

"We have company!" I shouted, mentally cursing myself for not picking up on the fact that we were in danger. I was the one with bionic hearing, I should have recognized that the sounds of their blasts were different than those of Kaz's, but I'd been too pre-occupied with the fuel tank.

Oliver was behind me in an instant, but I was blocking the door. "You want to move so that I can fight?" He questioned, sounding confused as to why I hadn't moved.

"You want to risk one of those shots hitting the floor or the fuel tank?" I shot back. He hesitated, realizing where we were standing. As it was, my shield was only able to block a portion of the room from the attackers - Venusians, if I was correct.

Not for the first time, I cursed my shield for being so small. Its size made it easier to use, especially in motion, and it was significantly more powerful, but there were times, like this, that I did miss the bubble-like force field I used to have.

"Alright, but it's gonna get a little chilly." Oliver warned seconds before a wave of ice pushed past me. It bit into my side a bit, but most of the attack blasted past the shield to hit the nearest attackers. The one on the far left took the full brunt of the hit and was pushed to the ground by the force of it, while the one directly next to him was only knocked back a couple of steps. The other attackers kept coming, gaining ground every second. "This isn't going to work."

"You don't say." I commented, pressure making me sarcastic. I had various ideas on what to do, but most of them were only half-made plans that I was sure wouldn't work anyway. I couldn't fight back without dropping my shield, but that would leave the engine room wide open. Oliver could create an ice barrier behind us to protect it, but that would take time, during which the Venusians would be over top of us, or create one in front of us, but that would trap us in engine room. That didn't leave us with a lot of options, so I decided on the only one that had a shot of working. "Alright, on three, hit them with a giant wave. We need to push them back."

"Why wait 'till three?" Oliver chimed in. I smirked.

"Three." I announced, dropping my shield, stepping to the side, and using my telekinesis to push the attackers back, all in one fluid motion at the exact same time that Oliver sent a giant ice wave towards them. I grinned as our combined attacks sent the attackers flying backwards, some of them even being flung clear of the ship.

"Don't you dare." Oliver growled, raising his hand towards one of the remaining Venusian soldiers, who had managed to keep hold of his spear. The soldier glowered at Oliver, wary of his powers.

"For the glory of the New Venusian Republic." He growled before firing. Oliver blasted him at the same time, deflecting the shot and knocking the weapon out of the Venusian's hands. But the shot had already been fired and I watched as it flew towards the engine room. I raised my hand, telekinetically throwing a storage box at the shot in hopes of stopping it. But it was too late; I watched, helpless, as the shot flew into the engine room and landed in the middle of the fuel-wet floor.

**Kaz's POV**

"There's too many of them!" Jaden hissed as I landed next to him. I didn't answer, instead raising my hand to send a blast of fire at the incoming attackers. Jaden took the opportunity to reload his weapon, grimacing. "Thanks. I'm almost out though."

"Yeah, I hear you." I muttered, briefly glancing back at the ship before returning my attention to the fight in front of me. The Venusian soldiers were boarding the ship at this moment, with Chase and Oliver trapped inside, but we were too overwhelmed here to help them.

"Are you kidding me?" Dani cursed in annoyance suddenly. I looked towards her in time to see one of her lightning balls hit one of the Venusians. But instead of sending him flying or knocking him out like it would 99% of the criminals we'd faced on Earth, nothing happened. He didn't even slow down.

"I think it's absorbing your electricity." Bree pointed out, voice echoing slightly as she sped by me and lunged at the nearest Venusian. I scowled, sending another wave of fire towards the Venusian, accompanying it with a few fire balls. Jaden was right; there were too many of them already, and with at least another half dozen inside the ship with Chase…we were outnumbered 3 to 1, with limited ammo and Dani's powers (which were arguable more powerful than any of the rest of ours, sorry Skylar) unable to do much against them. I certainly didn't like those odds.

"Well, that's just great." Dani landed on Jaden's other side and glanced at the older man. "I don't suppose Calla gave you a second weapon?"

"Don't worry about that. Go help Oliver and Chase!" Skylar called from where she was fending off two Venusians at once. She continued to fight against them, using her agility to go between one and the other rather quickly. "Your powers work better in close quarters anyway."

"On it!" Dani called, giving me a confident smirk before pushing off the ground and hurtling towards our ship. I had to rip my attention away from her as the Venusians kept coming. Suddenly, something in atmosphere changed. I couldn't see what, but I sensed it the moment it happened. I turned instinctively towards Dani, wanting to stop Dani before she got too far.

I turned just in time to watch in horror as our ship explode, a ball of fire and smoke replacing the high-tech ship and debris raining down on us. I dropped, covering my head as machine bits and ship parts came hurtling down at us. As the debris, still flaming, hit the ground, I raised my eyes in horror to where our ship had been; in its place was a wall of smoke, the ground around it singed.

"Oliver!" Skylar's horrified scream broke through the battle as it came to a sudden stop. Even the Venusians seemed shocked by the explosion. I stared in horror, unable to move my eyes off the still smoking wreckage. Oliver and Chase, they were just in there. They…they couldn't, they…

And then, slowly, agonizingly so, the smoke started to clear. And something in the center of the crater started to take shape. My heart stuttered and restarted as I recognized the blue glow of Chase's shield. A shield he could only use if he were alive. And if he survived, then Oliver had to, right? Right?

"They're-" I shouted, hoping to reassure Skylar and the others, but before I could get more than a single word out, the Venusians began firing on us once more, taking advantage of the situation. I ducked as one of the shots nearly took off my head, using one hand to send a fireball in my attacker's direction as I tried to locate Dani. She'd been flying towards the ship when it'd exploded, but I didn't think she'd been close enough to take the brunt of the blast.

It only took me half a moment to find her, but it still felt like half a moment too long. She was lying half on her side on the ground between me and the ship's wreckage, with a Venusian warrior standing over top of her. To her credit, she looked to be threatening him with what appeared to be a still-flaming piece of debris in spite of the fact that he had his weapon pointed directly down at her.

"Dee!" I shouted, raising my hand as I ran towards her. I took control of the flames and sent them flying into the face of the Venusian above her. He screamed, dropping his weapon instantly as his hands reached for his face. Dani grabbed the weapon with one hand, aimed and shot, hitting him right in the chest. By time I made it over to her, he was unconscious. "Dani." I murmured, kneeling.

"I had that." She ground out through clenched teeth, eyes screwed shut as she reached for my hand. I gently pulled her to her feet, concerned when I saw the pain on her face and the way she was clutching her left side.

"Let me see." I adjusted her free hand so that she was leaning on my shoulder as I gently pried her hand away from her side. Almost immediately, blood started pumping through a massive rip in the side of her uniform, and I clamped my hand down on it, trying to stem the flow. Dani let out a choked cry as I did, hand tightening on my shoulder.

"It's bad." She managed. I shook my head.

"I've seen way worse." I lied, mind whirling. The wound was big and, by the looks of things, deep, too much for me to deal with here, without medical supplies. The others were all still caught up in the fight - it was a miracle, really, that we weren't being attacked right now - and there wasn't a medical facility for hours. "It's gonna be okay. We just need to...figure this out."

"Guys, duck!" A voice shouted over the sound of the battle raging around us. I dropped to the ground, pulling Dani with me just as three massive balls of ice went flying over our heads. I followed them with my eyes and watched as they hit an incoming Venusian in the chest, knocking him back. I raised my free hand, putting a wall of fire between him and us.

"Ollie." Dani murmured breathlessly, voice weak. Sure enough, Oliver and Chase, both miraculously unscathed, came running up behind us.

"You're okay." I would have smiled at him under any other circumstances. Oliver's eyes slid from me to his sister, worry written all over his face.

"But you're not." Oliver knelt down to examine Dani's wound. He looked up at me, face pale. "She's losing too much blood."

I glanced at Chase. "Go help the others." I told him. The faster we could deal with the Venusian threat, the sooner we could get Dani some help. But Chase didn't move.

"I think it's too late for that." He said grimly. I looked up and, just past the fire that shielded us from the Venusians, I could see the others. They were heavily outnumbered, with Bree standing over an injured Jaden (a leg wound by the looks of it, not nearly as serious as what Dani was dealing with but enough to keep him down), and Skylar pinned by four Venusian warriors, a fifth aiming a spear directly at her throat.

"I think we've had enough casualties today, don't you?" The Venusian woman asked, keeping her weapon steady as she looked over at the rest of us. "Surrender."

Chase's face was an expressionless mask as he stared down the Venusian woman. After a moment, he finally spoke. "We need medical attention for two of our teammates."

"No." Dani protested weakly, head moving against my shoulder. Her eyes were closed, her face chalky. I pulled her fully into my lap, one hand clutching her wound, the other on her wrist. The Venusian woman glanced at Jaden and Bree, then at Dani and the rest of us before nodding.

"Jin." She called to one of her soldiers, the one nearest to us. "Take the injured prisoners to our outpost in Hexadoc, then transport them to home base." She instructed before turning back to us. "The rest of you can come with me."

I pulled Dani closer as the Venusian warriors approached. We definitely weren't going to be getting home as quickly as we thought we would.

**Chase's POV**

The Venusians, as it turns out, weren't the chattiest of people. They'd originally separated us, first into two groups - Kaz, Dani, and Jaden in one ship and Bree, Oliver, Skylar, and I into another - then put us in separate holding cells. I spent days, maybe weeks, pacing my cell, worrying about the others and trying to figure out what the Venusians wanted from us.

Eventually, I'd been brought in for an interrogation. They'd started by asking me about Caldera and their defenses, which I expected, but then had moved the conversation onto Earth. They were careful not to ask anything too specific – just simple questions about the planet's defenses, and then seemingly meaningless ones about the state of the planet. I, of course, hadn't answered any of them, well not seriously anyway. I'd hoped some flippant, sarcastic responses would aggravate them enough to show their hand, but unfortunately, the only thing I'd been able to decipher from their responses was that the sole reason they'd kept us alive was to be a "backup" for something. It was also heavily implied that they wouldn't need all of us for whatever it was, but I couldn't be certain that wasn't just the interrogator trying to frighten me into giving him the information he wanted (I didn't). But all of it made me wonder, what did they want with Earth? Was it their next target after Caldera, or were the two somehow connected as part of a single plan?

After the interrogator had left, frustrated that he could not get any answers from me after hours of questioning, I was brought to a dungeon of sorts. To my relief, it seemed that I was the last to arrive; Bree, Skylar, Jaden, Kaz, Oliver, and Dani were already locked inside, alive.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that we were all together, we weren't able to figure a way out of here. We'd made several escape attempts, desperate to find a ship and get the hell off this planet, but none of them had panned out. The farthest we'd made it was just outside the gate, where we were met by about half a dozen guards and a strange sonic weapon that made my ears ring just thinking about it. It'd been months of trying to make it out, trying to make it home, and we'd yet to come up with anything that would work.

"Don't you miss it when we had villains that spelled out their entire plan?" Dani asked, cutting me off as I proposed yet another theory as to why the Venusians had abducted us. She was mostly recovered from her injuries, the one bit of good news we had in here. "It was so much easier back then."

"Yeah, well, villains adapt. They learn from each others' mistakes." Skylar commented, pacing like normal. She glanced back at the ceiling. "You know, I still think the vents might be a viable option. They're big enough."

"We still don't know where they lead. It could be a dead end into a furnace or something." Bree pointed out from where she and Jaden were sitting one of the cots at the back of the room. "Besides, unless those things go directly outside the gates, we'd still need to fight our way out. I don't think filed-down spoons are gonna be all that helpful, do you?"

"If only we could use our powers." Oliver sent a pointed glare at one of the small, flat circles on the ceiling. In the first month of our captivity, we'd discovered that they let out some sort of signal that interfered with our powers. I'd be impressed with the technology if it wasn't being currently being used against me.

"I mean, we could try to deactivate them..." Jaden mentioned.

"Yeah, no. I got electrocuted the last time we tried to deactivate them." Kaz reminded him bitterly before softening and glancing at me. "Kinda wish we'd brought Emily along. With powers like hers, we would have dealt with these ages ago."

I snorted. "She probably would have agreed to come too, if only to not have to eat Calla's cooking." I admitted, smiling darkly. Suddenly, the sound of footsteps came from above the door at the top of the stairs. I frowned, glancing at the tiny window (barely a foot in diameter, too small for any of us to escape through) in the corner. "It's too early for it to be dinner." I thought aloud – dinner and breakfast were usually thirteen hours apart, at the same time every day, and that wouldn't be for hours.

We all stood up, ready for whatever was coming, when the door swung open and, to our surprise, three figures were pushed in. Two of them got tangled with each other and ended up landing at the base of the stairs, while the third, the smallest of them, stayed near the top as the door was slammed shut behind them.

I didn't recognize them initially in the dim light, but Bree gasped as she neared them. "Noah?" She demanded.

I looked at her, confused, but there was no question about who responded back with an equally confused, "Mom?"

I stared at the pile of limbs at the bottom of the stairs, stunned that my nephew, along with Ben "Aftershock" VanOver were lying in our cell. It was rare that I could be made speechless from surprise - you learned to expect anything and everything growing up the way I had - but even I couldn't formulate words when the smaller figure, Kira Broadman of all people, came bounding down the stairs a moment later.

To be fair, I clearly wasn't the only one taken by surprise. Kaz barely had time to react before his daughter leapt over Ben and Noah, still crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, and threw herself into his arms. Dani was equally stunned, eyes wide as saucers as she approached her daughter. She kept glancing between Kira and the rest of us as if we had some sort of explanation for this, but none of us knew what to say.

Jaden was the first to react really, stepping forward to help the boys to their feet before pulling Noah aside. "Oh, Bug." Bree murmured, pulling her son into a hug. I glanced back at Oliver and Skylar, shocked, but they looked as bewildered as I felt. "Wait," Bree suddenly came to her senses, pushing Noah back to hold him at arm's length. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Um…" Noah trailed off, glancing at Ben and Kira before turning back to his parents. "We're here to rescue you?"


End file.
